


Fox and Son

by microgeek



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Canon-Typical Violence, Families of Choice, Fix-It, Fuuinjutsu Master Uzumaki Naruto, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I called with all the loving disrespect a fan writer can muster, Naruto loves him even more for trying anyway, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parental Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama, Supernatural Elements, canon raised me a moon rabbit goddess and reincarnation, childcare is hard when you’re trapped inside your child, eye scream you scream we all scream, get fucked danzo, kurama has never raised a child before but this looks like a good place to start
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28005180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/microgeek/pseuds/microgeek
Summary: Kurama has little love for humans and even less for his jailors, those Uzumaki with wind and tide in their blood, audacious enough to trap a god beneath their skins. But there is enough love left in him for his newest host, who had as little say in this life as Kurama did, and asked Kurama for friendship anyway.(In which Kurama raises a child out of love, hope, and spite, Naruto grows up to be terrifying, and Konoha collectively regrets that an ancient chakra-beast is better at parenting than they are.)
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 226
Kudos: 698
Collections: Absolutely favorite works, Foxy fox 🦊





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been in the Naruto fandom for years, so let me say this lovingly, and with feeling: what the actual flying mint bunny. (A special hello to those of you who recognize that relic; the darkness never leaves us, does it?)
> 
> Anyway, I'm a big fan of stories where the sunshine child gets the love and support he deserves. I figured it's about time I wrangled a few ideas into a cohesive fic and add it to the pile, so here we go!

Naruto is four years old when he wakes up in the tunnel.

He remembers going to bed in the new apartment Jiji says is his now, curling up under scratchy sheets and a worn blanket with just enough space to peek out at the lights coming through the window. He remembers thinking that if he didn’t make any noise, if he screwed his eyes shut and melted into the dark, he’d never have to walk through the market crowds to get his own food, or get stones tossed at him on the playground and have kids dragged away, their parents whispering harshly all the while, _don’t play with_ it, _you know better than that._

He doesn’t remember doing anything that would have brought him to this place, this empty tunnel so wide and dim he can hardly make out the ceiling, this place where dark, smelly water laps at his legs, but somehow never makes his pajamas wet.

Even though the water isn’t acting like water should, Naruto doesn’t think this is a dream. He knows, without being sure how, that this tunnel is inside him. He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t want to be cold and wet and dark inside, because these things aren’t _good,_ and he doesn’t want to be _bad_ like everyone says he is.

But Naruto is here, and even if it’s cold, even if the water is murky and has an awful metallic smell to it, he’s going to look around. He has to, he’s suddenly sure, if he wants to find his way out.

So he walks, as much as he can walk in water that goes up to his knees. The tunnel only really goes one way. Even though the string of lamps at the top of the tunnel gives off the same sickly yellow light, the way behind him is swallowed in darkness after just a few steps.

Naruto doesn’t want to be alone in that darkness, even if this place is inside him.

He walks for a long time through the water. It’s quiet here. He’s used to the orphanage, full of loud kids and louder matrons. Even the new apartment hadn’t been quiet, sitting in a place with bright lights and people who wandered the streets in pretty clothes, laughing and calling to each other. But here, the only sounds are from a faint, gentle rumble like distant thunder, from the water sloshing around his legs and, when he pauses long enough to listen, dripping somewhere he can’t see.

That part is sort of nice. He can’t hear noises through the walls. No one’s yelling at him here.

Maybe it would be better if he never left. He doesn’t know how far he’s gone, anyway. Maybe he could spend the rest of his life walking and never get out, and then everyone would be happy he’s gone.

Naruto scrubs at his eyes and keeps going. The rumble gets louder the farther he goes, itching at Naruto’s memory until he remembers the oldest caretaker at the orphanage, who liked napping in the sun when she didn’t have to supervise play time. For such a little old lady, she had a deep, croaky snore a lot like what Naruto hears now.

Except that this sound is too big for anybody Naruto’s ever known. He thinks of the stories the caretakers told the other orphans — the few he could listen to, anyway, when he snuck away from time-outs to listen by the play-room door — stories about brave warriors and spirits and terrible monsters. Maybe it’s a dragon snoring, or an ogre.

Naruto pauses. Then he starts walking again. Even if it’s sort of scary, meeting something like a dragon would be _so cool_.

The water doesn’t make his clothes or skin wet, but it’s still cold enough to make his legs ache. He thinks that if he stops, he’ll be so cold he won’t be able to move again, and that scares him more than wandering here forever, so he keeps walking even though it hurts.

Then he comes to cell bars, taller than the tallest buildings in the village, and he can walk no further.

There’s a single sheet of paper with black squiggly marks where a lock would be on a cage, like the ones Naruto has seen animals kept in, and maybe, just maybe, he’s not as alone here as he thought.

He comes closer, until he can touch the bars. They’re so big and set so wide he has to spread his arms as wide as they’ll go, just to curl his hands around two. His hands don’t go around all the way, and unlike the water, the bars are a little warm. If he really wanted to, he could slip through the bars easily.

Not that he wants to just yet. If the cage is this big, whatever’s inside must be huge, too.

And it _is_.

It’s too dark to see the thing behind the bars very well, but Naruto can see just well enough to tell that it’s huge, and orange, and furry. He can hear it snoring, louder than anything he’s ever heard, until it stops. Then one red eye cracks open, looking like it might be as big as Naruto is tall, and it is _very close_.

The tunnel rumbles again, but this time, the vibrations are so strong, Naruto feels it in his bones. He doesn’t realize the vibrations are a _growl_ , until he sees dark lips curl, revealing sharp, pearly teeth bigger than he is.

_“What are you doing here so soon, brat?”_

A wave of old, rancid air washes over him. Naruto fights the urge to gag.

He’s been called _brat_ before, and a whole lot worse. But this doesn’t sound like the people in the markets. This sounds like some of the women who walk the streets in their mussed but pretty kimonos, who tell him to call them Aunty when he asks for their names and give him small sweets when no one else can see.

Naruto swallows past the lump in his throat. He doesn’t want to be afraid. This could be his big chance to make a friend, and he can’t waste it, not when there’s someone who isn’t yelling at him or leaving him behind. He smiles as big as he can and says, “Hi! I’m Naruto. What’s your name?”

Slowly, like it has Jiji’s creaky bones, the shape sits up, both eyes wide open now. It leans forward, moving into the light enough for Naruto to realize it’s a fox. A great big fox is inside him and it is _right at the bars._

_“My name? You want to know my name?”_

Another wave of awful air washes over him, and oh wow, that’s the fox’s _breath_. Naruto is never ever going to complain when anyone tells him he needs to brush his teeth. 

Naruto nods, not at all sure why this is weird. Maybe no one’s asked in a long time, the way people decide what to call Naruto on their own and never ask him. That makes him awfully sad.

“Uh-huh! Everyone has a name, and if I know yours we can be friends!”

The fox stares at him. He stares so long and hard that Naruto's heart starts to sink. Then the fox throws his head back and laughs.

He laughs even harder than he growled, shaking the tunnel and making Naruto stumble, but Naruto doesn’t feel so afraid anymore. Mostly, he just feels confused.

 _“Brat,”_ the fox says when it can talk again, still chuckling and smiling in a not-so-friendly way, _“if you still care the next time you come down here, then I’ll tell you.”_

Naruto has the strangest feeling of being tossed _up_ , so hard it takes the breath out of him. He keeps his eyes shut tight until he doesn’t feel sick, but he doesn’t need to see to know where he is. He can feel the sheets twisted around his legs, scratchy against his skin. He can hear the people in the apartments next to his, watching tv and shouting. He can hear music and laughter drifting up from the street below.

Slowly, as slow as the fox did, he sits up. He presses his hand against his stomach, where the skin is hot even through his shirt, and remembers he’s not really alone. 

Is the fox a monster? 

Do people call him demon fox and monster because he has a huge fox inside him? Is that — is that why everyone hates him?

Naruto untangles himself from the sheets, just enough to hug his knees. Maybe the fox isn’t a monster. Lots of people call _him_ a monster, but he doesn’t feel like one, and he doesn’t think he is one, even if he has a whole place and a big fox inside him. He shouldn’t call the fox a monster just yet. It hurts when people do that, and Naruto never wants to hurt anyone like that. 

Maybe no one’s tried to know the fox, just like no one’s tried to know him. 

And besides, the fox talked to him and didn’t hurt him, even if he did kick him out. He even said they’d there would be a next time Naruto could see him, and no one but Jiji has ever said that before. That has to count for something.

Naruto eases back down and tugs the sheets up, shivering against the there-but-not cold in his legs. He doesn’t dream of the tunnel, but of a fox’s yipping laughter, ringing out through darkness that flows and twists like water.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy holidays, everyone! this chapter was a test-run in terms of how well I could abide by a two-week schedule, so I'm glad to have it out relatively on time. I aim to have the next chapter out on January 8, give or take a day. See you then!

Naruto doesn’t know how, but a few weeks later, he falls back into the tunnel inside him.

Except he knows it’s not a tunnel now. It’s a _sewer_. Aunty Tomoyo told him when he asked where all the rainwater from last week’s storm went when it sluiced down holes along the roads, and she’d said a _sewer_ , a dark, smelly tunnel where water from the street and people’s homes went.

He doesn’t like having a sewer inside him. But even though it’s cold and dark and wet, he’s grateful for the quiet. He was going to stay in his apartment for a while anyway, but this is good, too. It’s even better than his closet, where he can still hear people talking and screaming through the walls. No one’s here to yell at him, or glare at him so hard, he can feel their eyes burning into his back. No one’s here to tell him he’s more good to everyone _dead._

All he’d wanted was a stick of dango. The man at the stall wouldn’t sell him anything, even though Naruto is sure he counted all the coins right, just like the caretakers showed him before he left the orphanage. The man wouldn’t even _look_ at Naruto until Naruto tried to touch the counter, and then he got so _mad_ —

Naruto scrubs his eyes and tries to pretend his chest doesn’t hurt. It does, anyway.

Then something moves out of the corner of his eye, and Naruto realizes he’s not just back in the sewer, but in front of the cage, too.

He pushes all of today and the past few weeks away, everything that _hurts_ since the last time he came here, because if he doesn’t he might _really_ ruin this, like people say ruins things. He doesn’t want to mess up his chance to make a friend. Naruto grins, warm from head to toe despite the chilly water, and runs up to the cage bars, grabbing them and sticking his face in the gap.

The fox is lying down a little ways from the bars, but not enough that Naruto has to squint his eyes looking for him in the dark. The fox’s eyes are closed like he’s sleeping, but there’s no snoring to shake the sewer like last time. Maybe the fox isn’t sleeping this time — Naruto dares to hope he was grumpy last time because he just woke up, and not because the fox doesn’t like him.

Naruto’s cheeks ache with his smile. “Hi!” He calls out. “It’s me, Naruto! What’s your name? You said you’d tell me if I came back and now I’m here, so tell me and we can be friends!”

The fox’s eyes crack open. He looks at Naruto for a long time before he lifts his head and rumbles, “ _Why do you care, brat?”_

“Everyone has a name! I wanna know yours so I can use it and we can be friends! You promised to tell if I came back!”

The fox stares at Naruto for a long moment with narrow eyes. Then he sits up, bigger than Hokage Mountain, and sighs. “ _I suppose I did. My name is Kurama.”_

Another flicker of movement catches Naruto’s eye, just behind the fox. The fox’s tail is curled up near him, but —

Naruto squints, straining to see into the gloom of the cage. Then he opens his eyes wide and bursts out, “Oh, wow, you have a lot of tails! Are you a magic fox?”

A moment of absolute silence passes.

Then Kurama rears his head back, his ears standing straight up and his eyes going so wide, Naruto’s smile gets bigger all on its own. Kurama makes a few choked noises before he finally manages words Naruto can understand.

“ _A_ magic fox _?! I am no mere_ magic fox! _I am a bijuu born of the Sage of Six Paths himself and the greatest of my kind!!”_

Naruto fails to see the difference, nor does he know who the Sage of Six Paths is, or why the Sage would make Kurama any different from a magic fox. But he doesn’t say any of that just yet.

He cranes his neck to look up at Kurama, who’s muttering about the _indignation_ of being reduced to a _magic fox_ , but doesn’t sound like the sort of angry Naruto needs to run from. He sounds like Aunty Haruka, who’s always grumbling about Naruto being _left to roam the Red Light District_ , but gives him snacks when she has them, so it’s probably fine to keep asking questions. 

“What’s a bijuu? Does that mean you’re _cooler_ than a magic fox?”

Kurama goes quiet and still. Some of his tails swish, like a cat’s. Naruto thinks cats do that when they don’t like something. They do that when Naruto comes close to pet them, right before their tails go bottle-brush thick and they hiss at him. He wonders if that’s the same for Kurama.

“ _... You don’t know what I am?”_

If Naruto knew, he wouldn’t be asking. He tells Kurama as much, which makes Kurama settle down. But it doesn’t take the strange look out of Kurama’s eye, or the wary tone of his voice.

“ _A bijuu is a tailed beast made of chakra. There are nine of us, starting with the weakest among us, the one-tailed tanuki, Shukaku, and ending me, the nine-tailed fox.”_

“So you’re the coolest?”

Kurama stares at him. Then he sighs, long-suffering like the caretakers, and says, “ _Yes. I, the most powerful of bijuu, feared across the land as a harbinger of calamity, am the coolest.”_

Naruto doesn’t understand _everything_ Kurama said, but he did hear Kurama say he’s the coolest, even though it sounded like it hurt him to say _coolest._ Naruto’s not done talking by a long shot, but he _is_ tired of standing, and his neck aches from looking up so much.

Kurama’s fur looks so soft through the bars. It would be nicer to sit on than being in the cold, murky water, but somehow, the same way Naruto knows this sewer is inside him without having ever been told, he knows he can’t pass the cage bars, even though the gaps are _huge_.

He goes ahead and sits, wincing at the cold, and cranes his head to look up at Kurama.

“Kurama, how come you’re in a cage? Can’t you leave?”

Kurama narrows his eyes. He lays down, inching closer to the bars until he’s so close, Naruto could reach out and touch him if the cage would let him.

“ _Has no one told you what you are?”_

All at once, Naruto doesn’t feel so warm anymore. He tries very, very hard not to bite his knuckles, even though he wants to do that and curl in on himself under his scratchy sheets and never see anyone again. “People say I’m a monster. Am I really? Is that why everyone hates me?”

“... _How old are you, anyway?”_

Naruto doesn’t get why his age is important, but if it is and Kurama’s asking for it— maybe it’s all right. Kurama’s still talking to him, and he’s not angry, even if he sounds a little weird. Maybe there’s a chance that monster or not, they can still be friends. So even though he doesn’t want to answer, Naruto mumbles, “Four and a half.”

For a long while, everything is quiet except for water dripping somewhere far away. Naruto is sure Kurama’s still watching him — the small hairs on the back of his neck prickle the same way they do when Naruto is in the market, trying to keep his head down while the crowd parts around him like river water flowing around a rock, glaring from afar like Naruto is sick and dirty, like so much as brushing up against him will infect them.

But when Kurama starts talking again, he doesn’t sound mad. He sounds — rough, but not mean. It’s not the way Jiji talks to him, or that nice man and his daughter who sell ramen. This is just like the people on the street Naruto lives on, the Aunties who wear beautiful, mussed kimonos and paint their eyelids and lips with pretty colors to match, who laugh with smiles that don’t always reach their tired eyes.

Naruto doesn’t always like what they tell him, especially when their words are rough. But they’ve never once been _mean_ , and even if he didn’t understand when they told him, those words always helped him later.

“ _No. You’re not a monster. You’re a jinchuuriki. A human container for bijuu like me. As for why I can’t leave…”_ Kurama sighs. “ _That is a long story, and one I must think on how to tell you.”_

Naruto perks up. “That’s okay, Kurama! I like stories.”

“ _Come back another time, child. I’ll have decided how to tell you then.”_

Just like last time, Naruto has the strangest feeling of being tossed back into his body. He wakes up in the closet, still bundled up in his scratchy blanket like a caterpillar, and even though he can hear the neighbors shouting next door, even though the rich smell of food frying somewhere in the building reminds him how empty his stomach is, Naruto is happy.

Someone has a story just for him. He just has to go back to hear it.

* * *

Kurama expected to sleep off the injuries to his chakra and pride — ugh, if it weren’t for that Sage-damned Namikaze, he would have re-formed and been _free_ — for at least a decade. Then the kid dropped in, and Kurama’s dreams of dead sleep have been shattered ever since.

He shouldn’t be all that surprised. The kid might have Namikaze’s coloring, but even at this age, he has all the trappings of an especially troublesome Uzumaki. Anyone else would have the good sense to be terrified of Kurama, but no, not the blood of a woman who looked at a bijuu and said _, now, why don’t I figure out how to make myself a living container for a feared and fearsome chakra beast?_

Except this Uzumaki has the audacity to do more than trap Kurama inside his own skin. This one, this little scrap of a human smaller than Kurama’s teeth, is bold enough to demand Kurama’s name, and then to ask if Kurama can leave this prison.

That, Kurama thinks privately — because he’s had neither company nor sake to have a proper conversation about the subject — demonstrates a ridiculous capacity for human stupidity, particularly in this village. Keeping the child ignorant of what Kurama is, to speak nothing of letting him develop his own ideas about what makes him a _monster_ , gives Kurama an opportunity the likes of which he never had with Mito and Kushina.

If only Kurama could _take it_.

He is the eldest beast born of the Sage of Six Paths, and once, in an age humans have been quick to forget, it was his duty to seek the evil in men’s hearts, and to deliver calamitous judgment on the wicked and those who would not punish them. In those days, when festivals and rites were held to honor the bijuu as gods of the land, Kurama believed good could exist in a human heart. As the centuries wore on and Kurama grew wiser, as the humans’ respect turned to fear and greed, Kurama abandoned his duty and took to protecting the land’s dwindling stronghold from their encroachment.

But Kurama has not forgotten this duty entirely. Down to the depths of his soul, he knows that even as a creature of malice and hate, he can’t blame a child. Not if the child hasn’t learned to hate — something humans, particularly shinobi, are entirely too keen on teaching them younger and younger.

This child is full of pain, as anyone sensible would expect from a jinchuuriki. There is helpless confusion at the cursed life he lives, one he’s ultimately had as little say in as Kurama. But there is no hatred in his heart. He’s simply too young to have cultivated his own fear and anger, and no one has taught him to hate Kurama. 

If he hasn’t yet been poisoned with fear and lies... If he can ask for Kurama’s name and friendship with nothing but a child’s honest desire for acceptance, then — 

Then Kurama will watch this Uzumaki more closely than he's watched his jailors in decades, and if by the next visit he has not spoken to anyone about meeting Kurama, if he comes again and understands the story Kurama tells him — 

Kurama will not be the first to corrupt what good his human heart holds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my outline (ha!) has so much for Naruto to learn over the course of his childhood through stories, and after Kurama tells the big one, I'm going to get so self-indulgent I'm gonna be Glowing


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, everyone! Life happened, but I managed to cobble this together, so here we go!

For the next three weeks, Kurama does what he so rarely did in Mito and Kushina — he pays attention. 

It isn’t like he needs his host’s permission to see the world through their senses. The sensory information is there regardless of whether or not Kurama wants it and, by the Sage, if Kurama could have done more than clap his paws over his ears while his jailors were being courted by lovelorn fools — not that even _that_ helped — he would have. 

But Kurama digresses. He pays attention, sifts through what he does and does not need, and files away anything useful. He has a system that’s less about organization than keeping him from knocking his head against the cage bars, because most of the information would demand a lake’s worth of grain spirits to process otherwise.

This is what he gathers:

Uzumaki Naruto, all of four and a half years old, lives on his own in a dilapidated apartment in a district full of gambling dens and brothels. Had Kurama forgotten the nature of this area — which he never learned in the first place, seeing that Mito and Kushina never set foot here — he's kindly reminded by the fancily dressed but disheveled men and women tittering through gritted teeth as their clients paw at them in the streets.

The child has a guard of six ANBU who work in eight-hour shifts, planting themselves wherever they’re afforded a good position to monitor him unobtrusively. Despite their masks and hoods, some are familiar — one stinks of wolf and dog, like the boy Kushina and Namikaze loved like another son. Another reeks of wood release, something that should have died with Mito’s cheerful idiot, but is of course here, when Kurama needs it least.

(Sage willing, the wood ANBU is a relation of Mito’s children. The thought that Asura’s line doesn’t have a monopoly on wood release is _not_ one Kurama wants to entertain.)

An elderly man in the Hokage’s robes — the monkey man, Kurama recalls, who held the hat before Namikaze and must have taken it back when he passed — visits the child once, although the child’s reaction suggests he comes with some frequency. The monkey man gives the child a packet of money, asks after his well-being, and indulges the child’s story about a ramen vendor. He’s gone within a half hour.

There are few others of note in the boy’s life. A ramen vendor and his daughter, who ruffle his hair and give him food free of charge. Prostitutes, who scold the boy away from clients or dangerous situations, and discreetly pass him treats when they aren’t working.

The rest of the village treats the child as a pariah. But this is not the stigma Kurama witnessed through Mito, whose dignified scorn silenced whispers and quelled wary looks, nor Kushina, who demanded respect from anyone who refused to treat her with the decency they’d afford anyone else.

Parents drag their children away from Kurama’s host when he approaches them to play, hissing that they should _stay away from the monster_. Adults in the street shy away from him, like the child is a walking pestilence, glaring at him and spitting poisonous words their children will later echo. Detritus and stones are sometimes thrown at the child, though the ANBU quietly ensure that these instances are few and far between. Food vendors and shop owners alike, save for the ramen proprietor and his daughter, refuse to sell goods to the child — or, if they deign to do so, their wares are ridiculously overpriced and often defective.

It’s a wonder the child eats at all. The ramen vendor the boy is so fond of must know he’s the primary source of the child’s food — although the child _always_ asks for pork ramen, he eats at least four bowls in a sitting, and the vendor takes advantage to give him ramen with more greens and mushrooms than Kurama recalls his previous hosts eating. As a matter of fact, now that Kurama thinks about it, this vendor _is_ familiar, if only because Kushina came here so often and glutted herself on so much ramen, the scent alone turned Kurama’s stomach.

That thought leads Kurama to a strange revelation — save for the child’s surname, no one acknowledges him as Kushina and Namikaze’s spawn. Certainly no one _treats_ him like it — could it be that few are privy to the information? Or could it be that when Namikaze sealed half of Kurama in his own child, the village at large decided that regardless of being their beloved Hokage’s son, regardless of being sacrificed for _them_ , the child wasn’t worth even the most basic care?

Even now, the child sits alone in the apartment, scribbling on crumpled newspaper and broken crayons scavenged from a trash bin. No one comes to clean the apartment, much less cook. No one comes to tutor the child or take him for classes — Kurama doubts he can do more than write his name and count on his fingers. Not even the ANBU break their watch to ensure the child bathes thoroughly and has clean clothes to change into.

Kurama recalls, quite vividly, that Kushina and Namikaze had asked a certain large, white-haired pervert who smelled of toads and oil to be their spawn’s godfather. But there are no photographs of such a man in the child’s apartment, nor does Kurama sense his chakra around the village when the child wanders. Did the man die while Kurama slept? Or did he, like so many in this village, abandon the child?

The answer means precious little. No matter the hopes Kushina and Namikaze held, the child is still almost completely and utterly alone, and so desperately afraid of what makes him so _hated_ in this village, he doesn’t dare tell the few kind people in his life that he’s met with the bijuu inside him, lest he lose them, too.

But for all that he’s endured, the child is astonishingly stubborn. There is some small resentment in his heart, but he never lingers on it, never nurtures it into the kind of anger and malice that could see this damned village burn. No matter how often he’s rejected and shunned, he continues to smile and hope the next person will be different.

Kurama knows that even this resilience, challenged each and every day the child leaves his apartment, could be worn down. The child is young. Another decade or so of this life will steal his smiles, and he won’t be nearly so friendly and desperate to please when he realizes that no matter what he does, this village will not accept him.

With no effort at all, Kurama could convince the child to turn his back on the hypocrites who laud teamwork and claim to care for their own, but have no respect for the lives they sacrifice. He could coax his host to draw on his chakra and overwhelm the seal, freeing Kurama all at once. Kurama could even persuade him, with gentle, damning words, that if he is worth such hatred from a village that loves the rest of its children, he should simply end his short, miserable life, allowing Kurama to reform in the forests far away from Konoha and human foolishness.

It would be so terribly, horrifyingly _easy_ , and all at once, Kurama seizes, shoving the image of a small, broken body out of his mind’s eye and throwing his paws against the cage floor.

He is a creature of malice and hate, but he is a _bijuu._ He is _better_ than this — this corruption, this degeneracy, this — this vicious and flagrant _abuse_ of a helpless _child_ who was sacrificed before he could choose this suffering for himself, and is not at all equipped to survive under these conditions.

If Konoha lacks so much honor it would choose to neglect its duty to its sacrifices and spurn this child —

Fine.

Kurama will take this child they have no business keeping, and he will make sure Uzumaki Naruto is better than them, too.

* * *

Naruto always seems to come here when he goes to sleep after a bad day.

Even though Naruto doesn’t want to come here _only_ when he’s had a bad day, talking to Kurama makes him feel better — especially when last time, Kurama promised to tell him a story.

Naruto hasn’t heard a real story since he left the orphanage. Sometimes old man Teuchi tells him about some of the ninja he knows while Naruto eats ramen, but that’s only when no one else is at the stand, and that doesn’t happen a lot. Jiji just asks Naruto how he is and if he’s brushing his teeth and stuff, and sometimes he’ll listen to Naruto tell a story, but he never has time to tell his own, even when Naruto is brave enough to ask.

So Naruto makes sure his face is clean, presses his hands — chilled from the water he landed in — against his eyes for a minute to take away the puffy feeling, and calls out, “Kurama! Kurama, I’m back!”

Just behind the bars, laying down with his head on his paws, the fox opens his eyes and yawns, showing Naruto all his big, pearly teeth. 

“ _So you are. Sit down_ — _the story I have for you is long, and every bit of it is true.”_

Naruto does just that, right near the bars. The water is chilly, but that’s fine — Naruto feels warm enough inside to ignore it.

“ _Once, in an age forgotten among men,”_ Kurama begins, his low voice settling into a cadence only the very best storytellers at the orphanage had, “ _there was no chakra_ —”

“Nobody had chakra? How come?” Naruto claps his hands over his mouth. The caretakers never liked it when they were interrupted.

But Kurama just sighs. “ _I’ll answer it in the story. And,”_ he says, giving Naruto a stern _look_ , “ _whatever questions you have, save them for when I take a break. I’ll answer your questions then, all right?”_

“But I always forget them by the end!”

Kurama sighs again. “ _All right then. Raise your hand, and I’ll answer as you have them.”_

Naruto settles back down, looking up at Kurama expectantly.

“ _Now_ — _there was no chakra in this world, not even in the plants and animals, or in the world of ghouls and spirits. There was only the energy of life, which no creature could bend to its will.”_

Naruto sticks his hand up. Kurama doesn’t quite make a face, like the caretakers at the orphanage did. He _listens_ to Naruto, and he’s not mad that Naruto already has questions. If anything, Naruto gets the feeling that even though Kurama doesn’t like being interrupted, he _likes_ to hear Naruto asking questions. It makes him feel even warmer inside.

“Are ghosts real, Kurama?”

“ _Ghosts, ghouls, and all manner of spiritual beasts are as real as you and I_ ,” Kurama says gravely. “ _They have a great many stories, but those are for another time. Now, where_ — _yes._

_“But one night, a clan called the Ootsutsuki, who came from a world so old and far even they have forgotten its name, sent a seed on a fallen star. The seed found a home in this land, where it could grow strong on the life energy from the land’s people and creatures, and in time grew into a tree so massive, its branches seemed to touch the heavens._

_“This tree was called the God Tree, and it produced a fruit that nourished the most honored Ootsutsuki, granting them chakra and immortality so long as they ate the fruit. But the price of this fruit is grave_ — _a God Tree is so ravenous and greedy, it drains_ all _the life energy from the world it inhabits, until the world that nurtured it dies._

_“The Ootsutsuki woman tasked with tending this world’s God Tree was called Kaguya. It was her duty to send its fruit back to her clan so they could create the medicine so valuable to them, and to destroy the Tree when the world died, taking with her its seeds so her clan could cultivate still more Trees._

_“But it did not happen this way._

_“Kaguya grew to love this land, and hated to see the wars that plagued it. So she took the God Tree’s fruit for herself, and used the chakra it gave her to rule the land, ending all war as she did so.”_

Naruto raises his hand again. “Wasn’t it good that she ended all the fighting?”

“ _For a time, humans thought it was good,”_ Kurama replies. “ _They called her the Rabbit Goddess, after her long white hair and the horns on her forehead, and worshipped her. But their new empress was ruthless. She trapped anyone who dared oppose her in an endless dream called the Infinite Tsukuyomi, and fed their sleeping bodies to the God Tree, which continued to kill the land._

_“She reveled in her power, and loved it so much that when her sons were born with it, she was consumed with jealousy. How dare they, she would scream. How dare her own blood take even a fraction of her power.”_

Naruto stares at Kurama, his heart sinking. He even forgets to raise his hand when he says, “Why was she so angry? They were her family! She was their mom!”

Kurama tilts his head. He looks funny, somehow. Sad.

“ _Not all parents love their children. Even those that do can be poisoned against their children, as Kaguya was poisoned by her lust for power._

_“By the time her sons came of age, Kaguya was consumed by her rage. She bade the God Tree to take her, so that together they could reclaim the chakra she passed down to her sons. The being they formed was called the Juubi, and for ten days and ten nights, it wrought destruction across the land, until Kaguya’s sons tore its chakra and body apart. Its body became the moon that shines in this very sky, which one son swore his line would guard for all time. Its chakra was sealed in the remaining son, who thus became the first jinchuuriki._

_“Towards the end of his life, this son was inspired by his own child to split the Juubi’s chakra, preventing any one being from holding all its terrible power. Thus were my siblings and I, the nine bijuu of the elemental lands, born.”_

Naruto gasps. Kurama has so much _family_!

But… 

But there’s no way Kurama could visit anybody like this. They’d have to come to see him, like Naruto does, and the same strange way Naruto knows this place is inside him says no one else should be here.

He knows the answer to his question even as he asks, hoping it isn’t true anyway.

“Can you see your family from here?”

Kurama doesn’t scold him this time, either.

“ _No. We drifted apart after our father_ — _Kaguya’s son, Hagoromo_ — _died. But I’ll tell you why staying apart like this isn’t our choice. It’s coming in the story.”_

“Okay.” Naruto rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Kurama’s a good storyteller — even though Naruto wants to hear the rest of the story, Kurama’s low, rumbling voice is soothing like nothing else Naruto’s ever known, not even Jiji’s hugs and old man Teuchi’s ramen. It makes him feel like he can really sleep here, cozier in this cold, wet sewer than he would be in his dry, scratchy bed.

“ _When we were young, my siblings and I walked as easily among men as we did the spirits and lands untouched by human hands, tending them as we swore by our father to do. Those were the days when the memory of Kaguya’s madness and her son’s feats was still fresh. Humans understood they shared this land with beings far greater than they, and honored us as best they could._

 _“But human memory is short. In a handful of generations, history became stories and stories became legends, until the gods and their sacred duties were forgotten. The only things that remained were fear of what they no longer understood, and lust for our power_ — _though no one dared to try and take it from us. Not until Uchiha Madara.”_

Naruto sits straight up. _Uchiha?_ Like the police? When he asks, Kurama nods.

“ _Uchiha Madara helped Senju Hashirama build Konohagakure, the first of the hidden shinobi villages. But Madara had long since been poisoned by hatred. It consumed him, just as hatred consumed Kaguya, until he wanted nothing more than to see this village and Senju Hashirama burn. His hatred and desire to match Hashirama led him to cast powerful illusions on me, and while my will was bound, he ordered me to raze this village as he would have a dog.”_

Kurama spits those last words like they taste nasty. Naruto would, too — the thought of being forced to do something so awful makes him shiver. He wonders if that’s why people don’t like him — not just because he has Kurama inside him, but because Kurama tried to destroy the village, even though it _wasn’t his fault_.

“ _Hashirama defeated him,_ ” Kurama says, like it was always going to happen that way, no matter what Madara tried. _“But not before I caused enough harm that a certain woman decided I was too dangerous to remain free. This woman’s name was Uzumaki Mito, and while Hashirama, her husband, subdued me, she sealed me inside her own flesh, and made herself the first jinchuuriki in hundreds of years.”_

This time, Naruto jumps to his feet, so excited he can’t help jumping up and down. Someone else has his name. _Someone else has his name_.

“Uzumaki?” He cries. “My name’s Uzumaki! Uzumaki Naruto! Kurama, was she my family? Do I have a family?”

Kurama’s tone is — gentle, Naruto thinks. The special kind of gentle Jiji used to explain his parents are dead, that Naruto wouldn’t be adopted like some of the orphans were, that Naruto had to live away from the orphanage and all by himself — the kind adults use to wrap up horrible, awful words that always hurt. 

“ _You had a clan once, though they didn’t live in Konoha. But the village they came from was destroyed. What few survivors escaped are scattered across the elemental nations.”_

Tears prick Naruto’s eyes. He scrubs furiously at them, but they only go away when Kurama says, in that same soothing rumble, “ _I have stories about your clan and the village they came from. Let me finish this story, so next time, I’ll tell you something about them.”_

Naruto doesn’t trust himself to talk. He nods, swallowing past the lump in his throat, and concentrates hard on the next part of the story.

“ _Now, then_ — _Uzumaki Mito sealed me within herself to prevent Madara from controlling me, and became the first modern jinchuuriki. Word spread to other shinobi villages that Konoha found a way to harness the most powerful bijuu of all, and they grew fearful that Konoha would use me to conquer them. So Hashirama decided to subdue the remaining bijuu and distribute them to the other villages, hoping to quell their fear. The other villages quickly learned how to create their own jinchuuriki, until not one of us was left to roam the land.”_

Naruto forgets all about being sad. This is a new horror all on its own, one that refuses to make any sense at all — especially now, because the story is _real_ in a way it wasn’t before, not even when Kurama told him about Mito.

“But none of you wanted that! How could they make you? Couldn’t they have just talked to you? You never wanted to destroy the village!”

“ _They didn’t want to talk. They had a solution in mind, and they didn’t check to see how we felt about it.”_ Kurama growls. It’s a real growl, too, the kind that shakes the walls and vibrates through Naruto’s bones. “ _As if we’re little more than mindless beasts. Pah! I’ve forgotten more knowledge than they could hope to discover in their lifetime.”_

Like fog in the morning sun, Kurama’s anger disappears. He sighs.

“ _Our story is almost finished.”_

 _Our_ story _._ Somehow, Naruto doesn’t think he's talking about just his siblings anymore.

“ _So it went for decades. When jinchuuriki grew old or came near death, the bijuu were extracted and sealed into new hosts, which always killed the old jinchuuriki. I myself was sealed into a new host before Mito’s passing. Her name was Kushina, and she was your mother.”_

His whole world comes to a stop.

“My mama?” Naruto whispers. He can’t say it any louder. If he does, he’s afraid none of this will be real. “My mama was your jin — jinchuuriki? Like me?”

 _“Yes.”_ Kurama looks at him for a long moment, like he’s looking for just the right words. “ _On the night you were born, Kushina and your father hid in the forest, so she could have you safely_ — _for childbirth weakens the seals that bind bijuu, and neither of them wanted me to escape. But an Uchiha attacked them, just as Madara attacked the village._

_“I escaped from Kushina in the chaos, but mere moments after my first taste of fresh air, the Uchiha captured me in his illusions, and forced me to attack the village a second time._

_“Your parents managed to fight off the Uchiha and to stall my rampage, though they faced a choice. They could not seal me back in Kushina_ — _she was fading even as she clung to life. They could allow me to reform, and risk my being turned on the village a third time. Or they could seal me in you, who were bare minutes old._

 _“Kushina wanted to leave me be. But your father didn’t want to take the risk, and convinced your mother to let him seal me inside you. So it was done. As Kushina lay dying, he took you, and used a seal to bargain with the great Reaper himself. The Reaper allowed him to split my chakra, and to seal half in himself and half in you_ — _because a baby, even an Uzumaki grown in the belly of my jinchuuriki, could not hold all of me. But the Reaper’s price was steep. In exchange for the seal, your father and half my chakra were swallowed by the Reaper, damned to fight in his belly for all eternity._

_“The end of this story brings us to where we are now, Naruto. Thus it happened that the bijuu were born, revered, and chained. Thus it happened that jinchuuriki were created, and thus it happened that I became imprisoned in you.”_

All Naruto can hear is the blood pounding in his ears. He doesn’t feel like part of himself. He doesn’t know he’s talking until he hears his own voice, and the quiet, shaky words don’t feel like his own.

“You didn’t like Mama, did you? Or Mito, or Daddy. Because they trapped you.”

“ _Yes.”_

Naruto bites his lip, fighting back tears.

“Do you hate me, Kurama?”

“ _No,”_ Kurama says. His voice isn’t that — that _awful_ kind of gentle. Now it reminds Naruto of Hokage Mountain, firm and immovable. “ _You didn’t choose to become a living prison, Naruto. I will not hate you for choices others made for you.”_

“But you’d leave if you could.”

“ _No.”_ Kurama inches closer to the bars, until he can stick one claw out. He stops just sort of touching Naruto. “ _I won’t leave you. I don’t want you to die.”_

“But — but why?” As hard as he tries, hot, fat tears roll down his cheeks anyway. “Kurama, _why?”_

“ _You asked me my name. You saw me not as a monster or a mindless beast, but a thinking, feeling being. You talked to me, and you listened to my story. I can’t hate you, child.”_

Naruto stops trying to wipe his tears away. He lets them fall, but before he gives into the tears completely, he manages to tell Kurama, “I’ll be the last one, Kurama. I won’t let anyone else trap you when I die.”

Then he cries. He cries until he gets hiccups, until his eyes get scratchy and his nose is raw from rubbing against his shirt. 

He cries for the mean thing Mama and Daddy made him do to someone else. 

He cries for the meanness they could do to someone like Kurama, who might be grumpy but talks to Naruto like he’s _worth_ something. 

He cries for Mama and Daddy, because they’re gone and he can’t talk to them. 

He cries for Kurama, who’s been trapped so long and forced to hurt people when he didn’t want to, and he cries for the rest of Kurama’s family, locked up inside people just like Kurama is.

Naruto cries until there’s nothing left, and when he opens his eyes, he’s in his own bed, just as wrung out as he’d been in the sewer. There’s so much whirling in his head it hurts him all over, and Naruto is too tired to think about any of it. 

He lays down on his scratchy sheets, puts his head on his damp, lumpy pillow, and closes his eyes. This time, he goes to sleep, and in his dreams Naruto is running through rubble, stumbling over the guts of his village strewn across the streets, desperately searching for some place to hide from cackling laughter and flashes of twisted faces he catches only when he dares to glance back.

He finds refuge in the corner of a collapsed building, one he thinks might have once been his apartment. The shadows writhe in his hiding spot, wriggling like long, bushy tails, but the darkness isn’t scary. The darkness wraps around him, holds him, _hides him_ , and as the cackling laughter passes nearby, it murmurs in a low rumble like a mountain’s voice, “ _I don’t hate you, Naruto. Remember that, and for all that I hated your parents and Mito and her cheerful idiot of a Senju, there was good in them, too. I’ll tell you, the next time you visit. I promise.”_

The darkness swallows him, but Naruto isn’t afraid. Naruto leaves the world of rubble and ruin behind, and wrapped in the sensation of warm, rasping fur and a mountain’s rumble, the rest of his night passes in peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for any mistakes you might find, I'll catch them as I can. barring any more surprises at the local and national levels, I'll see you in two weeks!
> 
> 1/10 - proofed and corrected minor errors, so don't worry about missing any details. happy reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm riding so high right now because the colloquial horse has left the hospital; partly to celebrate and largely because it's that time, here's the new chapter!!! Happy reading!!!!

Naruto goes back to see Kurama the next day.

It isn’t even a bad day. Just a rainy one. There’s so much water it’s practically white outside, coming down so steadily it sounds just like static from an old tv. Naruto sits at the table, head pillowed on his arms, watching the rain make everything fuzzy.

He doesn’t feel as numb as he did last night, listening to Kurama’s story. He remembers all of it, even if he doesn't understand the _whole_ story.

Naruto — thinks he’s happy. He knows he has parents. He knows he had a clan, even if they’re all gone now.

He pushes idly at his crayons, watching them roll back to him. But he’s not happy, either. He’s sad, for all he’s lost and all the meanness in the world, and he’s mad at people for being so mean, and he’s scared of what he doesn’t know, and it’s all mixed up inside. 

Most of all, Naruto thinks about what Kurama promised. To tell him about Mama and Daddy, about Mito, about the good that was in them despite the awful things they did.

And then — that’s it.

No matter what, Naruto just wants to know.

He closes his eyes. When he opens them, he’s back in front of the cage and Kurama is near the bars, laying down like he was last night.

“ _Hey, shrimp. Back for another story?”_

Naruto wrinkles his nose. "Hey! I'm not a shrimp!"

" _You're small, even if you're not done growing,"_ Kurama replies, which Naruto _guesses_ is fine, because everything's got to be small for someone so huge. “ _What would you like to hear about today?”_

Naruto pauses. He came down to listen to whatever Kurama would tell him. He didn’t — he didn’t think Kurama would ask what he wants. No one _really_ asks — even old man Teuchi slips vegetables and stuff Naruto doesn’t like in his pork ramen. Just the thought of being asked, of being _allowed_ to choose a story, is wonderful and terrifying.

He sits down in the water and chews his lip. He thinks hard about the story Kurama told him and all the things Kurama hadn’t really talked about, like Kaguya’s sons and Kurama’s family. Mito and Hashirama. The Uchiha.

But in the end, the choice isn’t hard. Naruto looks up at Kurama.

“Will you tell me about Mama?”

At first, he’s afraid Kurama will say no, even though he asked Naruto what he wanted to hear, because he doesn’t like Mama. But Kurama snorts, the way Jiji does sometimes when he thinks something’s funny, and it doesn’t sound mean or mad.

“ _Not a bad choice.”_

“But — but I thought you hated Mama.”

“ _I didn’t like Kushina, but I respected her,”_ Kurama tells him. “ _There’s a difference.”_

“Really?”

“ _he had the audacity and strength of will to trap a god under her skin. A terror like that demands respect, even if I don’t like her.”_

“She must have been so cool,” Naruto whispers. He leans forward, inching closer until he can touch the cage bars. “What was she like?”

“ _A fine addition to the Uzumaki tradition of terrifying women,”_ Kurama says dryly, and as he goes on to describe her, a picture forms in Naruto’s head of a woman from Uzushio-by-the-sea, with a trickster’s grin and hair as long and red as a war banner.

Mama came to Konoha when she was young, but not young enough to forget what living in Uzushio was like. She didn't like Konoha because everything was different and nobody liked her, either. They made fun of her for being a foreigner and having such thick red hair. But Mama didn’t let them be mean. She beat them up and worked hard until they _had_ to respect her, and in the meantime, she made friends with people who did like and respect her no matter what.

“ _Even for a shrimp, you’re a lot like her,_ ” Kurama says, propping his head on one paw. “ _You’re cheerful no matter how bad things get, though you’re missing the temper_ — _believe me, the temper on her could make the gods run. And you’ve got the same love of ramen. Sage, she could eat her weight in ramen, and she did it so often, I’m convinced she supplied half of Ichiraku’s income. I’m starting to think it’s genetic for you Uzumaki.”_

Naruto wants to say he’s _not_ a shrimp, but the thought that he could have something in common with _family_ — it’s almost too big to wrap his head around. Even if his family is gone, it makes his heart feel so big and heavy and warm, it might burst. So he just focuses on being like Mama, which is more than enough to make him happy.

“ _She liked pranks, too.”_ Kurama laughs, and even at a huff, the yipping echoes in the cage. “ _She was good with seals, and she used them in her pranks a lot. She had the jounin and chunin trained, to a man, to clear a room if they noticed any seals lying around their lounge._

 _“Of course, it wasn’t always that way. Shinobi are nosy little people. They like poking around each other’s things. Kushina was funny about that when it came to her seals, especially when she designed them herself_ — _if you asked her about them, she’d be happy to explain them from dusk to dawn. But if you snooped without asking her_ — _well, that smacked of the kind of property theft people from Uzushio_ hated.”

“So what did Mama do?”

“ _When Kushina had enough, she started making seals to leave around the jounin lounge, where people couldn’t resist snooping. The seals did all kinds of things if you touched them without a way to contain or defuse them. Some sucked your hands in and stuck to you for a few minutes_ — _you could get your hands out, of course, but it scared people half to death. A couple turned off gravity_ — _she was_ very _proud of those. But her favorites exploded. She’d load them with paint, or glitter, or even itching powder, and it was impossible to tell which ones those were. She’d change the patterns to make them look different, or she’d use another sensory seal to make the prank seal look different, in case anybody tried memorizing the prank ones._

_“In a month, nobody got into her things without asking, but she kept using the seals after. She liked keeping them on her toes.”_

Naruto laughs, loud and happy like he hasn’t in ages, or maybe even _ever._ Mama liked pranks, too. No — Mama didn't just like pranks. She was a _master._ Naruto wants to be just like her.

“I like pranks, too! I got put in time-out all the time at the orphanage, ‘cause I played lots of pranks on the other kids and the caretakers.” Softer, because it’s a secret he’s never ever told anyone, he tells Kurama, “Everyone gets mad when I play pranks, but — it’s okay. ‘Cause at least when they’re mad about pranks, I know what I did to make them mad.”

Kurama sighs. Even though he’s smiling, he still looks sad.

“ _What kind of pranks have you played?”_

Naruto straightens up. He tells Kurama all about putting worms in mean kids’ beds, loading a fan full of glitter in the playroom and covering _everything_ after a sour-faced caretaker told him he was too bad for story-time, and dropping balloons full of water and food coloring on people from the orphanage’s rooftop. He tells Kurama that he hasn’t gotten around to playing pranks around the village, but he has a list of people who’re going to get it when he’s finished looking around and gets supplies, especially since it’s harder to find stuff now that he’s not at the orphanage.

By the end, Kurama is laughing like he did right before he told Naruto how good Mama was at pranks, and Naruto can’t help but grin right along with him.

“ _You’re going to be another little terror, all right. I can’t wait to see it.”_

“Kurama, can I learn seals? So I can prank like Mama?”

Kurama tilts his head, humming. “ _I remember a few things, but I can’t show you in here. I don’t have anything to write with.”_ Before Naruto can make a face, he gets a gleam in his eyes and continues, “ _If you find books, I can probably help you from there. But! You have to work on your handwriting. Seals are a lot like writing. You need to get used to holding pencils and brushes.”_

This time, Naruto does make a face. The caretakers who led lessons were always telling him his handwriting was awful, and he hasn’t practiced since he left. But he doesn’t complain — he doesn’t think Kurama will like that, and besides, he wants to be like Mama. He’ll practice writing if it helps him learn seals.

Naruto pauses.

“Did Daddy play pranks, too?”

“ _Nope.”_ Kurama pauses, then sighs. “ _Your father’s name was Namikaze Minato. In years to come, you’ll hear that he was the fourth Hokage, who gave his life to protect this village from me.”_

It takes several long seconds for Naruto to understand, but when he does, his eyes fill with stinging tears. He whispers, “Daddy was... the Hokage? He really was?”

“ _Yes.”_

Naruto looks down. He wants to tell everyone in the whole village about who his parents are, but he knows no one would listen, let alone believe him. They’d laugh, and then they'd ask why he said something so dumb. Naruto might have to explain about Kurama, and then —

Naruto doesn’t know what would happen next. But he knows it would be bad. He nods to himself, sad but sure that he’s not going to tell anyone at all. He looks up at Kurama.

“Did... Did people like him?”

“ _They did.”_

“I thought maybe people hate me because of Mama and Daddy,” Naruto says quietly. “Sometimes they say Mama and Daddy didn’t want me. That I shouldn’t have been born.”

“ _Ridiculous,”_ Kurama says. He gets a funny look in his eyes, too, like he’s remembering something painful, but it’s gone too quickly for Naruto to ask what’s wrong. _“Your parents wanted you very much. They loved you very much in life and in death.”_

Naruto scrubs his eyes. When he can trust his voice not to shake, he asks Kurama to tell him about Daddy.

“ _You take after his looks_ — _he was as blond and blue-eyed as humans come. Smart, too, even though it kept his head in the clouds.”_

“Why was his head in the clouds? He wasn’t hurt, was he?”

Kurama laughs, but this time, it's a huff, not the yipping from before. “ _He wasn’t hurt. Having your head in the clouds means you don’t pay attention to what’s around you, because you’re too busy thinking. He was into seals even before he met Kushina, and when the two of them got together_ — _well. Remember how I said people started running from Kushina’s seals?”_

“Yeah!”

“ _They started running from his, too, except they ran even when he was in the room. He held nothing sacred when he started studying and experimenting. He’d scribble on receipts, napkins, the table he sat at_ — _anything he could make notes on, all of it a mystery to anybody but two or three people._

_“Hell, here’s something. Kushina bought him markers you can write on walls with, after he moaned about forgetting ideas he had while he was in the shower. You would’ve thought she gave him a starball! He had a timer for baths to remind him when to leave, and in the meantime he’d make the room look like a madman’s den with all that scribbling. But he was always careful to copy the notes elsewhere and clean up, so Kushina didn’t end up doing it, and they always spent time looking over the notes together.”_

Somehow, the picture of his parents huddled together on a couch, bent over reams of notes and talking about what might work, comes to Naruto's mind. He hopes they were happy.

“What kind of stuff did they make?”

“ _Once, t_ _hey figured out a seal that let Minato teleport. Well, reconstructed, more like_ — _there was a Senju just as bookish as he was who first came up with it, but Minato made it work for him. He was practically a puppy with your mom, but he scared people when he got serious. That seal earned him flee-on-sight orders from a few other villages.”_

There are lots more stories about Mama and Daddy, and Naruto is so happy to listen, he doesn’t leave until his stomach is so empty it hurts. When he does wake up in his apartment, it’s almost dark. He has to hurry to Ichiraku so he can get dinner, especially since he skipped lunch to stay out of the rain and listen to Kurama. But he doesn’t care that he has to run, the evening chill prickling his skin through his clothes all the way. He doesn’t even hear the grown-ups around him, grumbling and crying out as he ducks and weaves between them.

Naruto is too warm with all the stories he’s heard, told so well it’s like they aren’t even stories, but his own memories of Mama and Daddy.

* * *

Kurama is so full of stories, Naruto doesn’t think he’ll ever run out. Naruto visits him almost every night now, and every night, Kurama tells him a story.

Naruto makes _sure_ the very first thing he asks Kurama about next is _his_ family, because they’re friends, and friends are supposed to know about each other’s family. But this isn’t just how Naruto learns about his friend. This is how he learns history.

He listens to Kurama weave words into a vivid story about the half human, half Ootsutsuki left on Earth, who had no desire to sow God Trees and hoard chakra for themselves. He learns about Hagoromo, the Sage of Six Paths, who gave people chakra and taught them ways to use it. About Hagoromo’s sons, Indra and Asura, who each had to help heal their war-torn land to prove who was worthy of inheriting Hagoromo's legacy — and how Indra, a genius who invented ninjutsu and didn’t like to share or work with others, was passed over for Asura, who wasn’t as smart and liked to goof off, but worked with other people, and didn’t think any one person should be stronger than anyone else.

He learns how Indra’s heart and mind broke, forever cursing all his children to be consumed by self-serving hatred in the throes of despair — how Indra himself turned on his brother in a rage for having his birthright stolen, and waged a war that went on for hundreds of years through their descendants, all the way to the Uchiha and Senju clans.

He learns how Asura’s spirit to give and to never hoard power inspired Hagoromo to release the Juubi’s power as he lay dying, fashioning its chakra into nine bijuu that would roam the land forever after. Kurama tells him all about his younger siblings after this — and very pointedly tells Naruto that he is the _eldest_ , even if the others liked to say it was only by nine minutes.

So Naruto learns about Gyuuki, the eight-tailed ushi-oni who was easy-going with people he liked and serious with the ones he didn't, who enjoyed the cold shores and evergreen forests of Lightning Country.

Chomei, the cheerful seven-tailed beetle who actually has six wings and one tail, who called herself lucky and, Naruto thinks, listening to Kurama grumble about all the bets and small games he used to lose to her, probably was.

Saiken, the six-tailed slug whose acid release was at complete odds with his bubbly personality, which nothing, not even Kurama’s worst sulks, could dampen.

Kokuo, the five-tailed dolphin-horse who didn't like arguing or loud people, but didn't shy away from defending himself.

Son Goku, the proud four-tailed ape whose temper and chakra were equally fiery, and liked to soak in lava like it was a bath.

Isobu, the three-tailed turtle, who took advantage of his form to hide in his shell when he was overwhelmed.

Matatabi, the two-tailed cat whose ghostly flames could exorcise spirits, and who — despite being _second-youngest_ , Kurama gripes — had the manners and sharp tongue of a prim old lady.

Shukaku, the one-tailed tanuki, who hated being called the weakest of the bijuu for having just one tail, but never turned down a reason to celebrate, and was always the first to help prepare for festivals and parties and pranks.

Kurama admits he and his siblings grew distant not long after their dad died — that they all had their own duties and lives to lead, and besides, they could all be so loud and stubborn, it was easier to love each other from afar. But Kurama says it the way some kids at the orphanage talked about the parents they used to have. His eyes don’t quite see Naruto, but places and people Naruto can’t see, his voice sad and full of longing.

Naruto asks Kurama if there’s any way they can visit. Kurama tells him that before they were sealed, the bijuu could talk to each other, no matter where they were, because part of them was always connected. But something about being sealed keeps Kurama from reaching out — that’s why he couldn’t even warn them that he was trapped, and that the same fate was waiting for them, too.

Kurama pauses. Then he shakes his head, like he’s shaking all the sadness off, and tells Naruto not to worry about it.

But quietly, Naruto decides he will worry. He doesn’t want Kurama to be alone like he is. If there’s a way for Kurama to talk to his family, Naruto will find it. Even if he has to find the other jinchuuriki.

* * *

On a sunny day in the park, the sole of Naruto’s left sandal separates from the rest of the shoe.

He stumbles mid-run at the sudden sensation of grass and rocks under his foot, but he manages to keep himself from eating a mouthful of dirt. He goes back for the sole — just a couple steps behind him — and makes for a big tree with lots of shade, where he sits down and examines the busted shoe.

The sole and the edges of the shoe aren’t jagged. Naruto doesn’t remember scraping his shoe against anything, so it couldn’t have torn. He rubs his finger along the edges, checking for holes and threads, but he doesn’t find any, so it couldn’t have been bad threads, either. He thinks glue held the sole to the rest of the shoe.

He knows glue washes away in water. His pranks have gone bad when he uses glue right before a rainstorm, and he _has_ been wading through ponds for tadpoles and frogs lately, so maybe...

Ugh. That means he can’t just glue the sole back himself, or it’ll break again. He can’t sew it either, he thinks, rubbing the material. All his needles are too thin to pierce the sole or the shoe.

Naruto makes a face, but he takes off the other shoe and gets up, anyway. He chucks them both in a trash bin on the way home — Kurama’s ranted, more than once, about how humans these days have _no respect for the land, littering all over the place like this forest didn’t protect them through Mito's cheerful idiot_ — so Naruto takes extra care not to drop trash around.

He digs up Gama-chan from under the mattress and spreads all the bills and coins on the kitchen table, carefully separating them so they match and Naruto can see how much is in each pile. Then he props his head on his hands and thinks.

Naruto isn’t sure how to read _all_ the numbers yet, and doing sums is confusing when the numbers have too many digits. But he can usually tell when he has enough — at least, when he’s at Ichiraku, he can. When old man Teuchi tells him prices, they match what Naruto figures out on his own, so he can actually put money aside for ramen. 

That doesn’t work at the shops, though. He thinks the shopkeepers tell him different prices than what the tags say, because no matter how hard Naruto checks, no matter how _sure_ he is that he has enough money, they always tell him prices higher than he works out.

Naruto thinks he doesn’t have much money. He got instant ramen and soap, for himself and his clothes, a few days ago, and the prices at the counter were a lot higher than Naruto figured in the aisles. He isn’t sure he’ll have enough for shoes _and_ ramen before Jiji comes with more money, and Naruto _hates_ not having enough when he goes to Ichiraku.

Sometimes old man Teuchi gives Naruto extra bowls on the house, and Naruto is okay with that when he pays for four or five bowls — Teuchi does that for other people, too. But it’s different when he doesn’t have money. Old man Teuchi and his daughter are always nice — when they see Naruto doesn’t have enough, or _any_ , they still smile and give Naruto food anyway. 

But Naruto sees the way people look at them when they give him free food. He sees the way they look at old man Teuchi and Ayame, and he hears the way they talk.

Naruto doesn’t want either of them to get hurt because they give Naruto free things. So Naruto counts how many ramen cups he has in the cabinet — eight — and checks the calendar — Jiji taught him to cross off days as they pass, so Naruto can tell he has nine before the day circled in red crayon, when Jiji will visit again. That’s almost a cup of ramen every day, and since he knows how much stuff _actually_ costs at Ichiraku, he can set aside money for the extra day.

It stinks that he has to ration his ramen, but he needs shoes. The parks are okay, but even when it’s not muddy, there’s lots of gross stuff in the streets. Naruto’s been cut on broken glass and stuck on needles before, and even though the wounds go away fast, bleeding isn't fun. The aunties fuss when they see, too — when one saw him pull a needle out, she screeched and dragged him into an apartment with a bunch of other aunties, where they washed his foot and put ointments on and tittered anxiously, wondering what he might’ve gotten off that needle and whether they should take him to the hospital.

Aunty Tomoyo ended up taking him to a clinic where the aunties go, and she and the old nurse who checked Naruto had a long, grumbling conversation about the _state of child-care_ in the village. There’d been a masked ninja there, too, like the ones Naruto sees following him sometimes — Naruto couldn’t hear what he told Aunty Tomoyo because the nurse covered his ears so he wouldn't hear _bad words_ , but Aunty Tomoyo looked so _mad_ , Naruto still feels bad for the ninja, who was a whole head taller than Aunty Tomoyo, but cringed like a little kid the whole time she told him off.

The needlestick healed just like everything else does, and Naruto never did get sick. Aunties took him back to the clinic to make sure. But Naruto doesn’t like scaring the aunties or going to the clinic, so he sticks the ramen money in his pillow case — he adds a couple extra bills, just to be sure — puts the rest in Gama-chan, and heads out to the shop that sells shoes.

The man behind the counter doesn’t greet Naruto, but the shopkeepers never do. He goes straight for the shoes, forcing himself not to look at the toys and coloring books along the way, and searches the shelves he can reach for a pair that’ll fit.

He slows down when he sees the shopkeeper out of the corner of his eye. The man isn’t even trying to hide — he’s standing right at the end of the aisle, arms folded tight against his apron, like he thinks Naruto will steal if he isn’t being watched. That’s fine, even if it isn’t. Naruto’s already found sandals that should work. The number on the sole is the same as the number on his old sandals. He looks at the price labels now, putting his finger there and mouthing the numbers, until he’s sure he has enough, even when the price at the counter goes up.

The shopkeeper trails Naruto back to the counter, snatching the shoes up when Naruto puts them down. He looms over the counter and Naruto, his face twisted like an ogre’s. “These are too expensive for you.”

“I read the price tag,” Naruto tells him, and recites the numbers. “I have enough money.”

“That price isn’t for you.”

“But other people pay what’s on the tag.”

“Because those are _their_ prices.”

He tells Naruto _his_ price, a number that doesn’t sound good at _all_ . Naruto opens his mouth to say _that’s not fair,_ but a rumbling sound stops him. _Very familiar_ rumbling.

“ _You pompous, empty-headed corpse-picker, you’re as greedy as a God Tree,”_ Kurama growls, sounding so disgusted Naruto can practically see him curling his lips. “ _A century ago, I would’ve eaten you for bleeding children dry, damn the heartburn your greasy soul would’ve given me.”_

Naruto very carefully does not say anything, not even to ask Kurama what ‘corpse-picker' and ‘bleeding children dry'mean, or how Kurama even knows what’s going on to grumble about it. Right now, Naruto has bigger problems, like getting kicked out if he doesn’t pay up, and not even having shoes for his trouble.

“Could you write it down?” Naruto asks. “So I can see if I have enough?”

“No,” the man snaps. Then he narrows his eyes and demands, “Show me what you have.”

Inside Naruto’s head, Kurama growls louder, cursing the man to suffer a plague on the full moon. It’s hard to listen _and_ pay attention to the shopkeeper, but Naruto has to try — especially since he’s trying to angle Gama-chan so the shopkeeper won’t see _everything_ —

There’s a sudden, strong scent of _animal_ , more musky than a cat or a dog, and sweet the way some incense smells. Just as soon as Naruto notices, a woman’s voice purrs, “My, little boys shouldn’t walk around barefoot.”

Naruto catches the shopkeeper’s face going from pinched to pale to a weird smile that makes Naruto think of hot, oily foods that make his stomach turn. He turns, and finds a pale lady in a beautiful blue kimono, her sleek, waist-length hair as red as the paint on her lips. Nothing is out of place, not even a single strand of her hair, even though today is humid enough to make paper curl.

The pretty lady flashes Naruto a smile, like she’s got a secret, before she turns on the shopkeeper.

“Why don’t I pay for these shoes, hm?”

The shopkeeper’s face falls. He motions to Naruto. “You don’t want to waste your money on him, miss. Why, he’s —”

“He’s what? A fine little boy, if only barefoot,” the lady says sweetly, although there’s something sharp about her dark eyes that dares the shopkeeper to talk back. “I assure you, whatever the cost, it’s no trouble to me.”

Naruto isn’t so sure he likes where this is going. Kids at the orphanage did stuff for each other sometimes, but then they’d ask for _favors_ , like doing their share of cleaning or taking out trash from the diaper bin. He opens his mouth to tell her he can pay for it himself, but he thinks better of it when he realizes Kurama isn’t growling anymore. He’s snickering. Naruto keeps his mouth shut, watching the pretty lady and the shopkeeper carefully.

The shopkeeper gulps. He doesn’t smile at the lady anymore, and the price he tells her is the same one he told Naruto. The lady must know it’s too high — but she hands him money from a coin purse that matches her dark obi without a word, smiling as she takes the bagged shoes from his stiff fingers.

Kurama’s snickering dies down, but Naruto suspects he’s still laughing to himself in the cage. Besides the lady having his shoes, it’s the only reason Naruto keeps up with her as they leave the shop. As soon as they’re far enough that the shopkeeper can’t hear, Naruto looks up and asks her, “Why’d you pay for my shoes? His price was wrong.”

She laughs as she leans down, low enough to meet him eye-to-eye. Something about her laughter nags at Naruto’s memory, but he can’t quite place it, and he’s distracted anyway when she says, “Oh, it’s all right! I didn't lose anything valuable.”

Naruto wrinkles his nose. “What’s that mean?”

The pretty lady just laughs. She pats his head, cheerfully ignoring his protests, slips the bag in his hand, and walks off. Naruto scowls after her and takes a couple steps, meaning to catch her hand and ask her again. But he stops and just — stares.

He hadn’t seen it in the shop. Maybe he was so worried about the shoes and that meanie, he didn’t look at her properly. Naruto is absolutely positive he would’ve noticed something like the glossy tip of a red and especially bushy tail peeking out from under her kimono.

Naruto scrubs his eyes and looks for her again, but by the time he does, she’s gone. She’s nowhere on the street — Naruto even checks the alleyways and the next street over, uncaring that he’s still barefoot, but there’s no sign of her long red hair or her pretty blue kimono.

It’s a hot day, but Naruto shivers. He hurries to the park, aware of the sidewalk grit and rocks digging into his feet but not quite feeling it, and finds himself a nice tree to hide in while he inspects the bag the pretty lady gave him.

The sandals are solid enough in his hands, and they definitely have the smooth, vaguely chemical smell of new shoes. They’re heavier than his old sandals were, and thicker, too. Naruto runs his hands all over the outside and even sticks his hand in, but nothing _feels_ weird. Even when he puts them on, they just feel like regular old shoes, except they’re stiffer. That makes Naruto smile — he doesn’t remember if he’s ever had anything so new, he had to wear the soft spots in himself.

He has a lot to ask about Kurama tonight. But for now, Naruto makes for Ichiraku, humming as the coins rattle in his pocket and thinking that somehow, the pretty lady's laughter sounded like Kurama's.

* * *

When Naruto visits Kurama that night, the first thing he says is, “I heard you talking when I was at the shop! You were really mad at the shopkeeper.”

Kurama lifts his head up from his paws. “ _You did?”_

“Yeah! You called him a — a corpse-picker! What’s that mean, anyway?”

Kurama gets the funniest look on his face. Naruto realizes he wasn’t supposed to hear the words Kurama used, and tries very hard to remember what else Kurama said.

“What’s a plague? What’s supposed to happen on a full moon? And why were you laughing about that lady who bought my shoes?” Naruto pauses, wrinkling his nose. “Hey! How did you know to be mad at the shopkeeper, anyway?”

The ‘I said Bad Words’ look turns into the long-suffering one. But instead of getting huffy, Kurama just sighs.

“ _I can see the world through my host's senses._ _Believe me, I try not to, but your senses are forcibly wired into mine. I ignore what I can, but that idiot was so loud, he woke me up from a nap.”_

Naruto wants to ask Kurama why he didn’t say anything before, but as soon as he takes a breath, he realizes it doesn’t matter. Even if Kurama can see what’s going on, he can’t stop it. Not from inside Naruto. But it's still nice that even if Kurama can't leave, he has more to look at than this dank old place.

“Could Mama and Mito hear you like I did?”

“ _Yes. That didn’t happen until they were_ — _hm, let’s say until they used enough chakra to wear the seal in a little.”_

“... Like wearing a shoe in until it fits better?”

“ _Just like that, kid,”_ Kurama tells him, showing enough teeth for a smile that makes Naruto feel warm all over. “ _There’s a certain amount of chakra mixing that happens between the jinchuuriki and their bijuu before they can communicate outside the seal space_ _. Now that you can hear me, it means you won’t have to come down here all the time. If you practice, you’ll be able to talk to me during the day._

He claps his hands together. Just the thought of being able to talk to Kurama during the day makes him shiver with excitement. There’s so much they can do! Maybe they could play pretend, or — or Kurama doesn’t pay attention to _everything_ , so maybe Naruto can show him the aunties, and all his favorite hiding places at the park, and —

A beautiful idea dawns on Naruto. He can’t believe he hadn’t thought of it first! Kurama is older and smarter than _any_ grown-up in Naruto’s life! He _has_ to know how to read prices at the store!

Wait a minute — the shop!

“You never explained the bad words you used! Or why you were laughing, and — that weird lady! She was super pretty, Kurama, but she smelled like something furry and incense, and she had a tail! I saw it under her kimono, but she disappeared right on the street before I could ask her about it! She really bought my shoes, but I don’t get why!”

Kurama huffs a dry laugh. “ _You would make sure to ask me about swearing. Well, you get ‘pompous’ and ‘greedy as a God Tree’, right?”_ At Naruto’s nod, Kurama continues, “ _‘Corpse-picker’ means someone who steals from dead bodies. It could mean you steal their clothes or shoes, or the offerings their family intends to burn or bury with them. For shinobi, though, it's an insult to people who steal body parts, like eyes.”_

“Ew! Why would anybody steal eyes?”

“ _Eyes can be the source of great power_ — _remember, that’s how Uchiha controlled me. Or eyes might be stolen to do other jutsu.”_ Kurama shivers. “ _Ugh. When I tell you about Mito, I’ll tell you about her brother-in-law, too. A genius, that one, but out of his Sage-damned mind.”_

As far as Naruto knows, Kurama is afraid of nothing but Mama and Mito. He can’t wait to hear what kind of person Mito’s brother-in-law was to creep a bijuu out.

“ _Anyway. When you curse someone to a plague on the full moon, you’re referring to the moon being the Juubi’s body, and you want that person to lose their vitality_ — _that is, t_ _heir good health_ — _and fortune.”_

That sounds _mean_ , but then again, the shopkeeper was mean, too. Kurama wanted to eat him, even if it would’ve made him sick afterward. But Naruto decides he’s not going to use a swear like that, especially when he draws his curtains tight so he doesn’t have to see the moon and remember it's the Juubi's body. The moon is too big and terrible to swear by.

“ _Now. About that lady who bought your shoes.”_ Kurama inches closer to the bars. “ _Do you remember when I told you the first story, and I said that ghosts and supernatural beasts are real?”_

Naruto nods. He still hides in his closet when everything feels like too much, but since Kurama told him the first story, Naruto checks all the cabinets, his closet, and under his bed before he goes to sleep. He remembers the stories the older kids from the orphanage used to tell, and in case _those_ are true, Naruto isn't about to let anything drag him off his bed and eat him.

“ _Although they have a world of their own to live in, many youkai live in the physical world_ — _this one. But humans can’t always see them. Some yokai have the power to hide themselves from humans. Others_ — _let’s say that they live where the human and spirit worlds overlap, and because part of them is still in the spirit world, humans aren’t able to see or hear them.”_

“How come people can’t see youkai?”

“ _Human senses are weak. Strong priests aside, humans don’t usually see all of the world around them.”_ Kurama grins. “ _But here’s where you’re different. Bijuu can interact with the spirit and physical worlds_ — _and because jinchuuriki live with bijuu inside them, they can see youkai, too.”_

Naruto doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry, because even though people make _sure_ Naruto knows he’s different, no one’s ever said it like a good thing. Not like Kurama does. But he can see _ghosts_ — does that mean there just haven’t been any around? Wait — does that mean the lady who bought his shoes was a ghost? No, that doesn’t make sense. The shopkeeper wouldn’t see ghosts. At least, Naruto hopes he wouldn't.

“So what was that lady? And does that mean there aren’t _any_ ghosts and stuff around the village? ‘Cause I’ve never seen them before, Kurama, and I always check!”

“ _There are_ always _youkai afoot. That you’re only perceiving them now..."_ Kurama hums thoughtfully. " _I_ _suspect that’s because of how I was sealed in you. You need a lesson on chakra for the specifics_ — _and I’ll tell you that in a little bit_ — _but for now, suffice to say that the half of me sealed in you is the half more attuned to the physical world, while the half trapped in the Reaper’s belly is more connected to the spirit world. It probably delayed your ability to see youkai.”_

Naruto shivers, and not all of it is excitement at the chakra lessons.

“ _As for the lady_ — _that’s a simple matter. She was a fox. Not quite like me,”_ Kurama says quickly, before Naruto has a chance to ask. “ _Other foxes are made of flesh and blood, not chakra. Now, if a fox lives past a certain time_ — _say, fifty to a hundred years_ — _they gain spiritual powers. Thereafter, as they age, they gain more power, and more tails. If a fox should be so lucky and determined to live long enough to get nine tails, they can choose to live with gods in the spirit world, because they’re practically gods themselves._

 _“Foxes love all manner of pranks, but shapeshifting into pretty women and tricking men is a beloved classic. So is paying for things with what looks like money, but ends up being stones and leaves. The fox you met couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred years old_ — _showing your tail in a transformation means you don’t have much control over it.”_

No wonder the lady smiled at Naruto, like she had a secret! She was playing a trick on that mean shopkeeper.

“That was nice of her to help me with her trick!”

Kurama sits up, his ears pricked and eyes serious. “ _Naruto, remember this if nothing else. Y_ _oukai don’t live by the same rules humans do. I have a great many stories about youkai who thought they did humans favors, but got them into worse trouble than they started in. The fox you met was looking for mischief to do, and even though they helped you this time, it doesn’t mean they did it out of kindness. Don’t get cozy with youkai until you know what they want, and if it’s going to hurt you later.”_

Naruto pouts and tells Kurama exactly how confusing that is, but he promises to be careful, anyway. Then it sinks in, and Naruto can't help saying, “Aw, man! If he realizes the money's fake too soon, the shopkeeper’s going to say I stole the shoes! That means I can’t go back to that shop! He was a meanie, but at least he sold me stuff.”

“ _For ridiculous prices,”_ Kurama grumbles. He scrubs a paw over his face. “ _Speaking of numbers, w_ _e need to work on your math. Reading, too. Sage knows how little I trust this village to teach you properly.”_

Naruto scrambles up to the bars, leaning between them as far as he can, even though it’s like pressing up against a wall. He wishes he could run all the way up to Kurama and hug one of his paws and bury his face in all that warm-looking fur.

Someone wants to teach him. Someone _wants_ to spend time doing things Naruto isn't good at so he can get better. Someone _likes_ _him enough to try_.

It's all Naruto can do to scrub his eyes clear and grin. “You’re the most awesome friend ever, Kurama!”

Kurama pauses. Then he smiles slyly, and it's even better than when Jiji smiles at him, because when Jiji smiles Naruto gets the feeling Jiji sees Mama and Daddy more than he sees Naruto. This smile is just for Naruto.

“ _If I’m awesome now, you’ll sing my praises when I tell you there’s a trick that’ll have the merchants selling you goods fairly.”_

“Really? What is it, Kurama? You have to say!”

Kurama gives him a toothy grin, his eyes gleaming with mischief even in the dim light.

“ _With time and practice, I’ll have you slipping in and out of transformations as easily as a fox.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have inadvertently given Uzushio vicious traditions over seal knowledge and intellectual property law. you can drop by my tumblr (microgeek.tumblr.com) and ask if you want the spiel; I don't really have a place in the fic for it, and I don't want to bore people with block text in the notes, haha... ha...
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! Next time we meet, Kurama's going to have to figure out how to give math and reading lessons while Naruto figures out chakra, among other things :) See you around February 4th!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're a returning reader, you'll notice I changed the tags so there's more space for story-relevant tags, because I'm not eager to overload the tag section. Otherwise, all's the same!
> 
> Happy reading!

Kurama has a routine in mind for Naruto’s education. 

They’ll tackle math, reading, and writing in the morning, giving each subject an hour and taking breaks in between, so they can get the boy’s most dreaded subjects out of the way while he’s fresh. After lunch, Kurama will lecture him on chakra, and start him on the exercises leading up to chakra molding. This will also be for no more than an hour — Kurama has no delusions about a small child’s attention span, no matter how excited Naruto is about a subject. The rest of the day will be for play, encouraging Naruto in his interests and developing his ability to communicate with Kurama outside the seal space.

It’s a fine plan, though Kurama is certain it won’t survive its first trial intact. But that discovery and its ensuing revisions will wait — Kurama has more pressing concerns, like the dearth of learning material in Naruto’s apartment.

Kurama won’t claim surprise. It’s a miracle his tiny, half-feral jinchuuriki has anything at all, and even most of those things were never intended for use in schooling. But since they have at least a week before the monkey-man shows up with more money, Kurama swallows his irritation and takes stock of what they can repurpose.

Naruto has stubby crayons and a half-empty pack of colored chalk. He has scraps of paper, some of which have print, or are too stiff and brown to have been intended for writing. The paper with clear space can be used for writing and sums, and the chalk will serve them when they have no paper, or if they take lessons outside. The paper with print, along with what’s written on the child’s food packages, can serve as standards for writing and as reading material. All of these items can be used in counting and math exercises, on top of little rocks and things Naruto collects when he’s outside.

It is, in no uncertain terms, Sage-damned _pitiful_. But it’s what they have, and for now, they’ll make do.

Then they actually start.

* * *

_Kurama,_ Naruto groans, drawing out the words, _this is boring!_

Even with just a few hours’ practice, Naruto has gotten remarkably good at talking to Kurama outside the seal space. He still needs to stop whatever he’s doing to listen to Kurama, but at this rate, it won’t be a problem for more than a few days.

No, communication isn’t a problem, and neither is Naruto, who is trying his very best to pay attention and is, despite Kurama’s best efforts to be patient, acutely aware he’s struggling with things he should have already been taught.

The _problem_ is the damned materials they have to work with.

It’s all well and good to count food packages and have Naruto solve simple problems Kurama dictates, though Kurama has to cut these lessons short by half an hour. But the reading lessons are a nightmare. The print on what few scraps of newspaper Naruto has are, for Kurama’s many sins, from some civilian business report. The characters are not at all suitable for a child just learning to read, let alone write. The food packages somehow manage to outdo this with blocks of nutritional information that mean absolutely nothing to Naruto, but horrify Kurama the more he sifts through things like _percent of daily intake_ and _vitamin content_.

Kurama is sure Naruto is malnourished — he’s too small and thin compared to the other children they sometimes see on the playground or around the markets — but now, it dawns on Kurama that he doesn’t actually know what proper nutrition means for a human child. It’s not like he’s ever had to worry about the minutiae of maintaining a flesh-suit, let alone a growing one.

Sage help him figure this mess out. If Father won’t, Kurama is willing to look elsewhere, even if he has to lose a tail.

Kurama shivers. There was a ghost who used to visit Kushina regularly — that white-haired Senju who doted on Kushina like an uncle, as much as a spirit could. Kurama will have to find him before he gets desperate enough to make prayers someone will hear.

But Kurama digresses. His current problem is a deplorable lack of teaching material for his host, and once Naruto starts sniffling over his inability to remember a character Kurama just explained for the third time, Kurama makes an executive decision. 

_“It’s all right, kid. Don’t cry. Tell you what_ — _let’s go outside and look for better stuff we can use.”_

Naruto’s frustration shifts to such dazzling cheer, Kurama is startled by the change. In a flash, Naruto grabs his coin purse — the whole thing, save for a few emergency bills crammed in his pillow case — a ragged backpack, and a thin jacket, and tears out the door.

They leave the relative comfort of Naruto’s street to scrounge for supplies. In short order, they end up outside a second-hand store marginally less grudging about selling to Naruto than most places, with Naruto digging through a box of free books and magazines for anything that might be useful.

 _Kurama,_ Naruto asks, _how about this one?_

The magazine in Naruto’s hand has passable characters for reading lessons, but Kurama isn’t about to use it. Not something that screams _drivel_ as loud as a magazine called “Fire-Hot Weekly”. He tells Naruto to toss it, and the tabloid joins a growing pile of useless print on Naruto’s left. The pile on his right, which Kurama can and is willing to use, is nonexistent.

 _Ugh_. Then again, Kurama isn’t sure what he expected from this box to start with. Water-damaged or dusty novels, sure, and hopefully a few picture books. But there’s nothing in here but disreputable magazines, tomes thick enough to brick houses, and paperback romances.

They probably need to go inside. Sage knows how much that’s going to cost them, but damn it all, they need _something_ — 

_What about this? It has pictures of people_ everywhere _._

Naruto holds up a small book, thick and so well-used, the edges are soft. It reads “Elemental Nations Bingo Book”.

Bingo book. Why does that sound — ah, the bounty book. Kurama remembers that, if only because he’d been vaguely interested in seeing if jinchuuriki were listed (they weren’t, although Kushina was in the book simply because she was an Uzumaki armed with fuinjutsu, and needed no more reason than that).

A book like this might not be _easy_ to start with, but it does have most of what Kurama wants. The print is a little small, but the information is well organized. They can use the bounties so Naruto can learn his larger numbers and use them in sums. Even the content itself is useful — even if it’s not up to date, learning about different shinobi is bound to keep the kid interested.

 _“Keep it._ ”

Naruto hums, happy to have found something, and goes back to digging. He finds a half-used notebook and an aged atlas of the elemental nations, which join the Bingo Book in his backpack, before they give up the box and head inside.

The person behind the counter is not the shop's owner, Kurama thinks. He looks too young for that, for all that he’s gaunt and careworn, his long hair pulled into an unforgiving braid and the circles under his eyes dark. There’s a sign at the counter that warns shoppers to leave all bags at the counter, but the boy says nothing to Naruto. The weight of his sharp gaze disappears just as soon as Naruto ducks around a shelf.

Kurama can see why the store has such a sign. The place is fit to be swallowed by its own merchandise. Its shelves overflow with chipped crockery, dull pots, and trays of mismatched utensils. Racks bristle with clothing, worn, stained, and some even new. In trays atop the racks, piles of scruffy shoes balance precariously, waiting for just the right brush to topple them. Further in, the kitchenware and clothing gives way to figurines and fabrics, odd tubs of what Kurama can only call hardware and pranking supplies, and a hoard of appliances that wouldn’t have been out of place in Mito’s vanity or kitchen.

In a mess like this, it would be child’s play to slip things into a bag and walk out, the shopkeeper none the wiser to what inventory they’ve lost. But Kurama will give them credit where credit is due — though the shop is old and fit to burst, it is clean. Neither Kurama nor the child are assaulted by anything but the sharp smell of detergents and incense, and although dust is unavoidable for such a place, it’s remarkably little.

Naruto only sees enough of the mess to weave through it, nimbly avoiding rickety tables and items sticking out of their places, until they end up in front of towering stacks of books, magazines, and newsprints, the vast majority of which are neatly stacked by shelves too small to hold them all.

They’re limited to what Naruto can reach, but someone was thoughtful enough to arrange an accessible children’s section, so their selection ends up being passable. Naruto finds a partially filled math workbook that looks appropriate, as well as a child’s dictionary and another workbook, though this one is about phonics. There’s even a picture book about youkai that Naruto snatches up, eager as he is to hear more stories about them.

The books shouldn’t be the last of it. Kurama wants pots and utensils, so the child can cook his own food and eat better. He wants a thick coat, mindful that Naruto is small and underfed and furless, no matter that Kurama will keep colds and fevers at bay. He wants colored blocks and marbles and stuffed animals, not because they are useful, but because Naruto is a child, and he deserves to have trivial little things he doesn’t have to scrounge from some else's refuse.

But the books are the last of it, and for now, Kurama can do nothing but watch as Naruto goes up to the counter to pay. The sharp-eyed boy takes the books and tallies the cost quietly. His pen pauses over the paper. For a moment, Kurama thinks even this meager helping will cost a fortune.

Then the boy grabs a sheet of stickers from beside the register. Quickly, glancing at the shop entrance all the while, he peels off several red stickers and fixes them on the books. He shoves them into the bag, and the bag at Naruto.

“You found them all outside,” he hisses. “I didn’t give you anything, got it?”

Naruto nods, clutching the bag to his chest.

“Shoo!”

Naruto doesn’t need to be told twice. He hurries out, shouldering the backpack as he makes for Ichiraku, and all the while he tells Kurama how nice that boy is, how once, when Naruto first left the orphanage and didn’t know how to spend money properly, that boy made a show of kicking Naruto out of the shop while customers were watching — and just as soon as he came out again to toss out trash, he set an extra bag outside the bin and looked Naruto dead in the eyes as he left the bag open, showing him the clothes inside.

 _He’s not mean on purpose,_ Naruto takes care to tell Kurama. _I see him sometimes in the market. He has lots of little brothers and sisters. I think he’s tired all the time, ‘cause he’s always taking care of them, and the shop owner’s always telling him to do a good job or he’ll be fired, and the owner says part of a good job is not selling me things._

In all fairness, the boy _isn’t_ selling anything to Naruto, Kurama thinks. He tells Naruto the boy is doing a good job no matter what the owner tells him, because helping people shouldn’t be wrong. What Kurama doesn’t do is sigh, because century after century, the only ones willing to look after the outcasts and poor are their own.

* * *

To the child’s credit, as soon as he finishes lunch, Naruto runs for the park, clambers up an old oak and into a comfortable fork in its branches, and asks if Kurama is going to teach him about chakra.

Kurama was under the impression that today would be shot for learning, but if Naruto’s asking for lessons — well. That’s a different story, and one Kurama is glad to encourage.

“ _Chakra is a way for humans and some youkai to perform miracles,”_ Kurama begins, only for Naruto’s confusion to brush against his consciousness, like tentative fingers tugging at his fur.

The boy’s lips move, just barely, but the words remain in his head, safe from the scrutiny of the ANBU around them. _But shinobi do cool stuff all the time, Kurama. How’s that a miracle? Miracles are supposed to be special, aren’t they?_

“ _Miracles are things that happen outside the scope of nature. Humans didn’t develop chakra on their own_ — _some were given chakra from the God Tree by Kaguya’s children and their children. Thus, anything done with chakra is done outside the scope of what humans could do normally, and can be a miracle. Does that make sense?”_

_... Kinda._

_“Hm, let’s see. Have you ever seen anyone spit fire, or make a pit without digging it?”_

_Nope._

_“Not everyone can do these things. Humans who have chakra_ _use it to change the world in ways they usually couldn’t. So you can call what they do ‘special’ because those things don’t happen normally_ — _in other words, you can call them miracles._ ”

Naruto brightens. _Oh! That makes more sense, Kurama!_

“ _Good. Now, chakra is energy. There are seven forms it can take, depending on how it’s controlled. The first five forms are the elements_ — _earth, wind, fire, water, and lightning. The last two are yin and yang, and it’s these last two that truly make chakra capable of miracles._

 _“Yin is the chakra of imagination and spirits. Using it allows you to create things, but these things are like ghosts or illusions_ — _you can’t touch or hold them._

 _“Yang is the chakra of vitality and the physical world. It’s this chakra that lets you make changes to your body. When used with yin chakra, yang chakra gives your imagination substance_ — _so if you created an illusion with yin chakra, you could make it real with yang.”_

 _No wonder chakra’s special,_ Naruto whispers. _Can people really do that, Kurama? Can they just_ — _make stuff by thinking about it?_

“ _Some people can, though not everyone who uses chakra is able to do it. But using yin, yang, and the elements will come later, when you can draw on your own chakra. What we must work on now is breathing.”_

Naruto slouches against the tree. _Breathing? But that’s lame! Everyone can breathe, Kurama._

“ _But not everyone does it well,”_ he counters. “ _Chakra is the energy of life, and because you are flesh and blood, you draw life from breath. To use chakra properly, you first have to learn how to breathe.”_

Naruto doesn’t quite grumble as he sits up, but the inclination disappears once Kurama explains that proper breathing will make him stronger — that he’ll be able to use his strength and energy more effectively, that it can help calm him when he’s upset or afraid, that it can even do things like slow the spread of poisons in his body.

Not that Kurama would let something as mundane as poison hurt his host, but it’s the principle of the matter. Breath control is _foundational_ to sensing and using chakra, and Kuram's going to make sure Naruto learns it.

So he makes a game of it. He has Naruto drum his fingers against the tree to a rhythm Kurama taps against the cage bar — first in a four-count, then a seven-count, and finally an eight-count. He tells the boy to inhale from his belly, like a tiger that needs to roar quickly, to hold that breath as his fingers tap the count, to let the breath go from the depths of his lungs and to do so slowly, like he would if he was hiding.

In like a tiger. Hold and release like he’s hiding. Keep in time to his tapping fingers. Over and over again, with Kurama’s corrections to slow or quicken his fingers and breathing.

It might be easier if they had drums. It’s easy for beginners to lose themselves to a tattoo they can feel in their bones, and growing familiarity with the rhythm helps them catch the beat of their own pulse. But for a small child and a beginner, Naruto is doing fine without. This activity frustrates him, but in a different way than the reading and math exercises. The emotion is fleeting, rather than something that builds and eventually needs release.

Perhaps, Kurama thinks, he should keep breathing exercises outside for now. Best not change what works, even if he isn’t sure what exactly is working about the location or the activity.

It goes on like this for some time. Kurama drops the talking, only tapping his paws along as a reminder, as Naruto improves. He’s pleased with Naruto and himself — right up until spirits start to emerge from the tree.

* * *

_“Kodama,”_ Kurama growls, exasperated and resigned all at once, and Naruto forgets all about breathing. He opens his eyes to find white, lumpy little things clambering onto his tree branch with stubby limbs, their dark eyes wide and empty, and only Kurama’s irritation — irritation isn’t anger, isn’t rage, isn’t _fear_ — keeps Naruto from screaming.

He plasters himself against the tree’s trunk, eyes darting around to count the kodama crawling towards him. There are twelve of them, their heads shaking and making an awful, clicking racket, and how they aren’t all heavy enough to break the branch, Naruto doesn’t know. But what he does know is _he isn’t staying_ . Especially when Kurama says, “ _That’s enough breathing exercises for today,”_ in a tone that really says, _I have officially reached my limit for surprises_ _._

Naruto shimmies down the tree as fast as he dares, ignoring how dropping the last bit jars his ankles, and runs. There’s nothing strange on the way home, and when Naruto gets inside, he makes sure to do both locks, check all the lockers in the kitchen and bathroom, and look under his bed before he sits at the table.

Naruto isn’t sure he’s ever run so fast or been so scared before, even when the matron was screaming for whoever stabbed one of the older boys with a pair of scissors.

(That most certainly wasn’t Naruto’s fault, but a girl that boy didn’t like to leave alone. Naruto didn’t blame her. The older boys could be _mean,_ and unless they were scared, they didn’t stop being mean _._ )

“ _Breathe, kiddo. Not like before. Just take slow, deep breaths, okay? In through your nose, out through your mouth.”_

Naruto listens to Kurama, even though it’s hard and it feels like he isn’t getting enough air. It helps that Kurama keeps talking, his rumbling voice just as low and calm as ever.

“ _Those little things on the tree branch were tree spirits. They're called kodama,”_ Kurama explains. “ _They’re a sign that the trees are healthy, so they’re supposed to be auspicious.”_

Naruto swallows thickly and manages to whisper, “Auspicious?”

_“Good luck. But they’re annoying. Especially since the kodama around here glutted themselves off that wood Senju’s chakra.”_

_Oh. But they look scary, Kurama! Why’re their eyes like that?_

“ _They just are. They have been for as long as I’ve been around, and probably a lot longer than that.”_

Naruto rests his head on the table. He feels better enough to close his eyes, and just like that, he’s back in the seal space, where Kurama is making a rough, chittering sort of noise.

“ _These village kodama are spoiled,”_ Kurama grumbles. “ _As soon as they smell yang chakra in any abundance, they start begging. Harmless, the lot of them, but brainless, too. They don’t have sense enough to leave people be. They’ve been that way since Hashirama settled here and fed them on whims. Now they climb all over people who can see them. They did it to Mito all the time. I don’t know how she put up with it_ — _Sage knows that Uzushio wouldn’t have let her.”_

Naruto smells a story coming along, and even more than that, he’s curious. He sits down in the water, hugging his knees to his chest, and asks, “But Uzushio was the village. How could it have stopped the kodama?”

Kurama hums. “ _I call it Uzushio because it’s been part of the village since its founding, and because I don’t know its name. It’s a greater god that grew fond of the first Uzumaki who settled in that area, and was worshipped by them ever since.”_

“A greater god? Is it like you, Kurama? And how come you don’t know its name? Isn’t it rude not to know its name?”

“ _Ha, now there’s a thought,”_ Kurama says, huffing a wry laugh. “ _I’m a god, Naruto, but compared to what’s sleeping in the sea by Uzushio, I’m a child as small and young as you are. Besides, with that sort of god, it’s better not to know names. If you know the sound of a name, you can call anyone_ — _but you need to be careful. Sometimes they answer, and not in the ways you want.”_

Naruto guesses that makes sense. When people pray, they make sure to ask specific gods for things — he definitely hears the police asking Amaterasu for patience when they scrub graffiti off shops and listen to people complain. Even Kurama swears by his father, even though Naruto is fairly sure Kurama doesn’t expect him to answer.

“But the god liked Uzushio? It liked Mito and Mama?”

“ _The sea-god loves Uzumaki. Your kinsmen were, with a handful of exceptions, insane to a man. That sort of thing is apparently attractive in humans.”_

Naruto considers this, particularly since Kurama likes him. “Am I insane, too?”

“ _Naturally,”_ Kurama says. “ _Humans don’t usually make friends with gods of any kind. Believe me, you’re from the same stock that gave us that terrifying slip of a woman who brought jinchuuriki back into being.”_

Naruto laughs. When he quiets, he asks, “What was Uzushio like?”

“ _I didn’t spend much time near there before the village fell, but..."_

Kurama spends the rest of the evening telling him about a village built in a valley that opened up to the sea. He tells him about the red and gold tiles the Uzumaki loved to use, sometimes filled with shells and colorful glass they took from the sea, and how the sunlight would catch these tiles at dawn and at dusk, painting the village like an extension of the sky.

The Uzumaki stayed close to their god and their traditions, even as they grew apart from the world of spirits, the way humans have been doing for hundreds of years. When Kurama was young and took to visiting Uzushio with his siblings, they would get swept away in festivities celebrated by man and spirit alike — for the Uzumaki turned away no reveler and asked no questions, more than happy to dance with the sea witches who came with the tides and to drink the liquor they brought.

 _“It’s a wonder more of you didn’t die in those days,”_ Kurama tells him, a faraway look in his eyes. “ _Liquor from the sea-witches is brewed for the gods_ — _it’s terribly potent stuff. A cup could lay a man down for the night. A pond of it, about the size of the pond in your favorite park, could even get a bijuu drunk. And your ancestors used to drink it like sake! Cup after cup until they passed out where they drank, and they’d be up the next morning, cheerful as always, but murderous from the headache the liquor gives you._

_“Come to think of it, that might be why your clan is so durable. They had to if they wanted to party with spirits, and more than a few sea-witches liked that sort of energy enough to marry.”_

The picture Naruto sees is a little like the street he lives on. He imagines lanterns strung everywhere and throwing their warm light on people, laughing and smiling as they dance and throw back cups of clear, sharp-smelling drinks. He’s sure there were games, booths where people could catch fish and pop balloons, and stalls for fast, fried foods they could eat while they walked.

Naruto’s never been to a festival before. But he’s heard people talk, and Kurama’s stories are almost as good as being there.

“ _Ah, no wonder they caught a god’s eye. But it’s no small thing to have a greater god’s attention, Naruto. What the Uzumaki worshipped and came to call Uzushio, their god and village all at once_ — _it comes from the sea, and even among gods, it is very old and very fickle. It doesn’t feel the way humans do._

 _“The Uzumaki gave their blood to Uzushio, so they could always find their way home. When they died, they burned their bodies and gave their ashes back to the sea that birthed and nourished them. And those Uzumaki whose bodies weren’t given back_ — _those who didn’t find peace and became ghosts_ — _well._

_“Uzushio knew the sound of their names and the way to write them, so they could be called and bound. And even better than that, Uzushio had their blood. Dead or alive, Uzushio loves its children enough to see them home.”_

Naruto wants to be scared. He is, a little, because he can’t even begin to think about a god who loved his family so much, it made sure even their ghosts could go home. But Naruto thinks it sounds... Nice, too. Because someone in this whole wide world, _something,_ loved his family that much.

“Do you think Mama’s in Uzushio?”

_“Probably.”_

Naruto hugs his knees tighter. “Couldn’t she come to see me?”

 _“No,_ ” Kurama says quietly, and this time, his eyes are grave. “ _Your mother might have died many leagues from her village, but she was an Uzumaki through and through. She gave her name and blood to the sea_ — _if she won’t pass on to the Pure Lands, Uzushio will keep her, no matter what she wants.”_

“What if I went to Uzushio to see her? Could we, Kurama? When I grow up to be a super strong ninja?”

“ _I don’t know. You’re an Uzumaki, Naruto, and even I don’t know how many of your clansmen escaped their village’s destruction. If you go, Uzushio might not let you leave.”_

The chill Naruto gets stays with him, even when he goes to bed and bundles up in his blanket. When he finally falls asleep, his dreams are full of ruins bathed in red-gold light from a setting sun — and even so, the sea behind Uzushio is dark and frothing, the waves that beat the shoreline filled with pale bodies and blood-red hair.

Naruto wakes up right in the sewer with a scream caught in his throat. He feels awful about waking Kurama up, but it isn’t like waking a caretaker. Kurama just yawns, his voice only sleep-rough when he tells Naruto stories about Mito and her husband Hashirama, the sealmaster from the sea and the man whose very footsteps gave way to new life, until the next time Naruto wakes up, it’s to light streaming through the shades in his apartment.

* * *

The lessons get easier adjustments to Kurama’s plans and access to real materials.

First, he cuts the lessons down from an hour to half an hour — the time doesn’t seem as daunting to Naruto this way, and somehow, the kid ends up being more productive in less time.

Kurama also takes lessons outside — but not always, and not for everything. Writing better with the exercise book, but still a pain because Naruto doesn’t like the subject. Being outside offers too many temptations for distraction, which inevitably kill his chances of focusing on his workbook. So they both learn that writing exercises should be done inside, while math — as long as the workbook isn’t involved — can be done outside, where Naruto is happy to do problems with live tadpoles and small, smooth stones he finds here and there.

Reading is a toss up, although Kurama is glad — and a little concerned — by the simplicity of the characters in the Bingo Book, which is by far Naruto’s favorite. The information is organized such that even after a few days, Naruto has learned the words for section headers, and is quickly picking up on things like _flee on sight_ and _assassin._

Kurama is also concerned that in a few weeks, once they’ve read the book from cover to cover, Naruto is going to go back over it until he has all the entries memorized. He isn’t concerned for Naruto, exactly, but for himself, because he went down this road with Matatabi when she was small and obsessed with learning about youkai. He makes a quick mental note to purchase an updated copy of the Bingo Book, if only so that once Naruto starts spouting facts, Kurama will have something new to hear every so often as he nods along.

For now, though, the Bingo Book and its collection of _cool ninja_ is an excellent incentive for Naruto to read. Kurama offers Naruto what information he can on some of the entries, though many are a mystery. Some are even interesting.

The book is divided by country, and is old enough to have a section on shinobi from Whirlpool. Kushina and Minato don’t feature in this one — given the printing year, Kurama suspects they were hardly older than Naruto when this came out.

But Minato’s perverted toad sage is in here, along with Mito’s grandchild, a fellow whose family clearly aligned with snakes at some point, and a man with the same surname as Kushina and Minato’s almost-son. There are also a number of assorted Hyuuga and Uchiha, and when Naruto comes on these, Kurama takes care to explain where their eyes come from.

The rest of the book is filled with people Kurama is mostly unfamiliar with. A man from Amegakure called Hanzo of the Salamander, whose very blood and breath ran rich with poison. One or two people from the land of Earth with mouths on their limbs. A woman from the land of Wind who commanded a hundred puppets and coated all her weapons in vicious toxins. A man from Takigakure whose body contained masses of sinuous dark threads, who tried and failed to assassinate Hashirama.

(Kurama remembers that one. He remembers how close Mito came to killing him — the only thing that saved the thread-man was the interference of some idiot who thought he could defend Hashirama better than Mito could, when she was as close to a sea-witch as Uzumaki got.)

The people from Whirlpool take longer to sort through, if only because Naruto is keenly interested in everything that made them so dangerous. Some Uzumaki were detonations experts — they could make anything explode without even a dash of saltpeter. Others were medics who could share their chakra through bites, or were especially vengeful in their use of anatomical knowledge. A fair number were simply saboteurs, to the immense sorrow of whoever they targeted. These people stripped any sense of solace their enemies might’ve had, even behind their own lines, and subsequently gave them battle fatigue by the dozens.

Nearly all the Whirlpool entries are so dangerous because of their talent with seals. Who needed explosives when a few strokes in blood could make a tree explode? Why bother with restraints when a seal to the spine could paralyze, or risk sneaking into camps when you could poison a water supply with an enemy's own wounded? And how vigilant could anyone be, to check every plank on a supply box, every tree trunk around their camp, sometimes every stone and leaf, to make sure no one had written a surreptitious seal to disorient or maim?

This is just a fraction of what the Uzumaki were capable of, Kurama tells Naruto. Sealing used to be so much more than murder and destruction — but without anyone to see it through, this will be the most anyone remembers Uzushio for.

Naruto, all of four-going-on-five, isn’t about to let this happen. He promises Kurama, as loud and sure as any sea-born Uzumaki, that he’ll become the best sealmaster and the strongest ninja in all the world, and then no one will forget the Uzumaki, or lock the bijuu in cages.

But before any of that can happen, Naruto has to learn to breathe.

Most shinobi don’t learn to breathe before they draw on their chakra. Not until they’ve grown older and more set in their ways, and by then, it’s difficult for them to learn what it means to know not only their own flesh and chakra, but the chakra around them. Humans like to say that such an ability is limited to sensor-nin, but in reality, anyone with chakra could learn it to some degree — sensor-nin simply have more talent for it.

So for Naruto to use chakra and use it well, he must first breathe, then sense, then finally draw on his own power.

Naruto practices breathing until he’s so frustrated he could cry, and even then, he tries to use the breathing exercises to calm himself. He practices until he doesn’t need Kurama to help him count his breaths, and from there, Kurama bids him to lose himself in the rhythm until he can feel his chakra pulsing in his blood and bones, and to sense where he ends and Kurama begins.

They continue this way, with lessons and stories and Naruto running half-wild through the streets, beholden to no one but Kurama and the handful of people willing to offer him care, until Naruto's birthday brings several interruptions to their routine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first part of this chapter absolutely did not want to be written, but thanks in large part to the madoka magica soundtrack, I won. I'd also like to pour one out for Kurama, who doesn't know he won't have access to a new Bingo Book for a few years, but will hum and nod along to Naruto's hundredth recitation of ninja facts anyway, because kids need interests, and if this is a Special Interest, so be it.
> 
> I'm also posting updates on microgeek.tumblr.com, where you can hit me up and chat if that's your speed. See you all around 2/18 with the next chapter!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the slight delay and length! life is A Lot lol, but the prospect of writing tobirama and lore gives me strength. enjoy!

Something is rotting in Hokage Tower.

Even halfway to the building, with Naruto perched on the back of an ANBU with a tiger mask, Kurama can smell it. It doesn’t even have the decency to smell metallic and vaguely sweet, like old blood. No, this stinks like fat and flesh left to putrefy in wet heat, and even this far out, the stench clings to the inside of Kurama’s nose, crawling down as though he has lungs to choke.

Thank the Sage Naruto isn’t overly sensitive to spiritual residues, or he’d throw up what little bile he has in his belly. Kurama is tempted to himself. The last time he smelled corruption this bad, he needed Matatabi’s help to lay waste to a whole village until everything, even its spiritual and physical footprints, was gone.

Kurama is very keen to find out what’s gone so wrong for so long in that building. Then he remembers he’s down half his chakra and stuck in a very small, very squishy child, and he is considerably less willing to be taken.

Not that what Kurama wants matters at the moment. The same ANBU carrying Naruto had been the one to wake him up, and to tell the child where he would be going in the small hours of the morning. Regardless of how Kurama feels about it, Naruto will be in Hokage Tower all day, riding out his birthday and the anniversary of Kurama’s unwilling attack in relative safety from the rest of Konoha, which hosts a festival in honor of Kurama’s defeat — Kurama’s standards are perilously high thanks to the Uzumaki and even Shukaku’s desert-dwellers, but he nurses a petty hope that it’s the dullest affair on the continent — and could feel especially emboldened to hurt the child.

So Kurama swallows his many misgivings about the tower — enough that they won’t taint Naruto’s glee at being carried across Konoha’s rooftops in the dead of night — and decides to focus on the ANBU, another source of misgivings entirely.

The wood ANBU is an old one, as is the wolf-dog boy. But the Uchiha is new.

This one is young, and doesn’t have the metallic, burning scent of an awakened Mangekyo — not like the wolf-dog boy, who also bears the faintest hint of decay, as any non-Uchiha with a Sharingan will. Cold though it might be, Kurama finds some comfort that for now, neither Sharingan user in this group of ANBU can control him.

The ANBU enter the tower through the Hokage’s office. It’s changed little since Kurama saw it through Kushina — indeed, it’s changed little since Hashirama’s days, save for the portraits marking each Hokage. The old desk Hashirama grew himself still creaks beneath the weight of paperwork piled so high, Kurama wouldn’t be surprised to find decades-old documents at the bottom of the stacks.

The greatest difference is the smell, so heavy now Kurama despairs of ever smelling anything else.

In Mito and Kushina’s day, there had been some foul odor about this place — small wonder, considering how many ill-minded humans trafficked it. But it’s untenable now. In this office, even Naruto has started to wrinkle his nose against it.

Some undertone of the scent nags at Kurama. He’s smelled it before in this place, and that limits possible sources to humans — no spiritual entity has been in this office since Hashirama passed and the kodama retreated to their parks and forest. Kurama can’t remember the person the malignancy came from, but whoever they are, they frequent this office, and despite the intensity of their rot, doesn’t care to attach to others — at least not the monkey-man, who carries his own share of regrets, but is miraculously clean for the time he must spend in this cesspool.

It takes an unfortunately short amount of time for the monkey-man to give his small, distracted affections to Naruto and to check the seal. When he finishes, the tiger ANBU carries Naruto into the hall, where the first whiff of air has Naruto gagging.

The tiger ANBU fusses, speaking to the wolf-dog boy in low tones about whether or not the child might be sick, might have eaten something off. Naruto can’t contribute to the conversation. By Kurama’s advice, he has his face tightly buried in the tiger ANBU’s shoulder, slowly breathing through his nose to keep from vomiting.

But he doesn’t keep his eyes shut, and only Kurama’s soothing keeps him from screaming.

 _Kurama,_ he cries, _Kurama, what is this?! I don’t like it! I want to go home!_

 _"Advanced corruption of the soul,"_ Kurama says grimly. " _The kind only death can help."_

Perhaps Hashirama’s influence lingers in the office, enough to keep the rot at bay. But in the halls, it’s a tangible thing, hanging in the air like clouds of fungal spores and growing on the walls like so much oozing mold.

The building is a lost cause entirely. Kurama growls and, uncaring of how early it is to try the seal like this, forces threads of his chakra through — just enough to permeate Naruto’s body, clearing the child’s nose and lungs beneath the ANBU’s notice. The rot’s manifestation grows stronger the further they descend, and so too does a new element — a man’s low, furious voice, cursing with such bitterness it’s a wonder the object of his ire is still walking.

Then they round a corner, and Kurama learns the face of this corruption.

It’s an older human, his right side heavily bandaged, a scar in the shape of an ‘x _’_ marring his chin. The miasma around him is thick enough to choke on, and for a split second before Kurama clears his airways, Naruto does. The man gives no sign that he knows just how putrid his soul has become, left to fester in decades of ill will and sin — but he must, to some degree. Humans like him always know. They simply have ways to twist and disguise it, or avoid addressing the issue altogether, so they don’t face the full gravity of what they’ve done to reach this point.

Kurama still can’t quite place this man, but whoever he is, Senju Tobirama likely knows. 

His pale face is twisted with disgust and anger as he curses this human he calls _Danzo,_ telling him what a wretched student he was and how Tobirama should have put a blade through his neck decades ago, sparing them both the shame of Danzo’s follies. Tobirama pauses in his tirade only long enough to take notice of the passing ANBU and Naruto. The anger vanishes in an instant.

Tobirama looks more exhausted and heart-sick now than he ever has, even in Kurama’s inattentive memories from Mito and Kushina. The ghost stands in the middle of the hall, glancing between Naruto and Danzo as they walk farther away from him. His shoulders droop. Quietly, his face carefully blank, he turns to follow Naruto and the ANBU.

They end up in a small, windowless room, with only a sofa, a low table, and a lamp. Someone was thoughtful enough to leave crayons and a coloring book for the child, along with a pillow, a blanket, and a stuffed frog that smells vaguely of toads and oil — strongly enough that Kurama is certain it’s from that perverted toad sage, but not enough to know if he handled it recently.

More importantly, the room reeks less of Danzo’s influence than the rest of the building. Some of that is Tobirama’s doing — he isn't an especially powerful ghost, but the claims on his soul are powerful enough to ward off the miasma to an extent. He stands by Naruto, and this close, it’s easy for even Naruto to pick up on the wood-and-earth overtones of his scent, and the faint brine underneath.

 _"It’s all right now,"_ Kurama tells him. " _The corruption isn’t nearly as bad here."_

 _But it’s still here,_ Naruto says mulishly, looking around the room suspiciously even as the tiger-masked ANBU puts him down. The other ANBU, save for the wolf-dog boy, take their leave. The remainder promptly slink to separate corners of the room without a word.

Typical, Kurama thinks, taking care to shield the thought from Naruto. But Tobirama has no such compunctions, his lips curling with disgust.

“Do you plan on weaving webs in those corners? He’s a child, and the lot of you understand insurrection perfectly well when it suits you. The least you — and _you_ especially, Hatake — is talk to him.”

The ANBU, of course, can’t hear. But Naruto can. He turns sharply to Tobirama — thank the Sage Tobirama is standing in front of the table, where the coloring book and crayons are — his consciousness shivering against Kurama’s with glee.

 _"Not so fast,"_ Kurama says sharply, before he can open his mouth. " _He’s a ghost. You can’t talk to him right now, or the ANBU will poke inside our heads with grimy hands, and it’ll be a bad time for both of us."_

Naruto claps a hand over his mouth, which isn’t especially helpful. But these particular ANBU either don’t care or don’t see anything suspicious. They don’t so much as glance at each other over the motion.

Tobirama, however, has care and suspicion in spades. Tentative hope chases the shadows out of his eyes, and for all that Tobirama is no Uchiha, the red of his irises makes Kurama’s hackles rise.

“You... You heard me. You must have. How — no. Don’t answer me. Let’s sit on the sofa.”

_"Go ahead, Naruto. He’s fine, more or less."_

Naruto goes. But as he clambers onto the couch, he finally notices the coloring book and crayons.

“Oh, wow,” he cries. “Are these for me?”

The tiger ANBU, who lacks wolf-dog boy’s crippling self-hatred and grief, and is probably more rebellious regardless of that, grunts an affirmative. It’s all the permission Naruto needs to grab them, so excited to have new things that he immediately starts coloring, heedless of the ghost beside him.

Tobirama huffs a small, dry laugh, leaning closer and propping his hand on his chin to watch. At Kurama’s firm urging, Naruto very carefully does not look at him, even if he feels mutinous about it.

_I should talk to him. It’s mean to ignore him, Kurama._

_"He knows you can’t talk to him in front of the ANBU. This isn’t his first go-around with jinchuuriki."_

_Really?_

_"Mm. He’s Senju Tobirama. In life, he was the younger brother of Hashirama, beloved brother-in-law to Mito, and the last honorary Uzumaki._ _Tobirama’s also the white-haired Senju I told you about some time ago. He hung around Mito long after he died, and kept up with Kushina like an uncle, as much as any ghost can."_

Naruto’s crayon pauses on the page. _Oh, wow,_ he says softly. _Can he tell me stories about Mama and Mito, too?_

_"Maybe. We’ll have to see."_

The crayon moves once more, the scrape of it on the paper loud in the otherwise quiet room.

“I’m sorry we haven't met sooner,” Tobirama says quietly, as though the ANBU can hear him. “I tried, when you were at the orphanage, but you couldn’t see me then. Perhaps your spiritual sensitivity was delayed, as Mito and Kushina’s was. Though you were sealed with the Kyuubi so soon, it shouldn’t have been so long..."

Kurama would deeply appreciate having some kind of corporeal form, if only to grouse that any sealing involving the Reaper is going to take a while to weaken, and especially if the being sealed was split in half. But Tobirama pauses, perhaps remembering his visible audience is a small child, and changes tracks.

“My name is Tobirama,” he tells Naruto. “I knew your mother, and Mito, who was your great aunt. I was something of an uncle to Kushina. I hope I can be the same for you.”

Naruto hums, though even Kurama can’t tell if it’s in response, or because he’s satisfied with the way his picture is coming along. Tobirama watches a while longer.

“You’re shaping up to be like Kushina, aren’t you,” he murmurs. “I imagine she didn’t like coloring between the lines as a small child, either. By the time she came to Konoha, she wasn’t much for coloring books.”

Naruto slows his coloring, tilting his head to better listen.

“I have to find where you live. You most certainly aren’t at the orphanage anymore, and Saru’s taken enough care to keep your whereabouts hidden that I only have rumors. Danzo…” Tobirama cuts himself off, sighing. “At any rate, you couldn’t possibly be where I think you are. It’s no place for a child to grow up.”

One would think — unless, of course, this Saru is Sarutobi the monkey man, and Tobirama is implying he’s so worried about keeping Naruto from the rotting man, he’s hidden Naruto in a seedy civilian district, where shinobi and village administration can’t easily look for a pint-sized jinchuuriki.

Having _seen_ the state of this Danzo’s soul and smelled the surely-stolen Sharingan in his skull, Kurama can imagine just how unscrupulous the bastard is where power is involved, and how desperate the monkey man might be to keep Naruto hidden not only from foreign enemies, but from his own village.

What a complete and utter _mess._

While Kurama nurses a new headache, Tobirama, basking in an ignorance he isn't likely to keep for long, turns a critical eye on the child.

“Look at how thin you are! Kushina could eat a horse at every meal. Mito, too, once she became a jinchuuriki. Whoever feeds you clearly doesn’t understand you eat for an Uzumaki and the Kyuubi.”

_Did Mama really eat horses, Kurama?_

_"No, that’s just a saying. It means your mother ate a great lot, and so did Mito, precisely because they ate for themselves and for me."_

Tobirama’s face, even out of the corner of Naruto’s eyes, says he sees more than how thin the child is. It also says that if he were alive, he would skin whoever left Naruto in such a state, and put both the preserved body and skin on display to warn anyone else against doing the same. It’s a damn shame he’s too dead to do it.

“Your mother loved you a great deal. She would be heartbroken to see you so thin. Now I really must find where you live and see who takes care of you.”

 _"Kushina would be more than heartbroken,"_ Kurama mutters. " _She’d claw her way out of her grave to beat whoever dared mistreat you bloody, if only Uzushio would let her."_

Naruto shivers, and frankly, so does Kurama. He spares a sudden hope that someone at least burned her body. Before the Uzumaki settled Uzushio, there were _stories_ about their dead, and more than a few said that if an uncremated Uzumaki had unfinished business, they’d get up and do it themselves. The possibility, no matter how tightly Uzushio might have Kushina’s soul, is terrifying.

Tobirama quiets after this, though he glances at the door uneasily and with growing frequency. Naruto pays him little mind, too absorbed with coloring.

Kurama doesn’t remind him about his lessons. There will be time for that later if Naruto gets bored with coloring, or even tomorrow. Today is his birthday, and while Kurama is far too old to think much of his own, each year Naruto survives is a victory. It deserves some semblance of celebration, even if the most Kurama can give him is a break from schooling.

Well. Maybe it isn’t _quite_ the most, if Kurama can give him enough chakra for proper claws. Humans might have opposable thumbs, but it’s little wonder they need tools and chakra to do simple things like slashing and climbing. Maybe, if the ANBU switch to that particularly lax rotation...

Suddenly, Tobirama says, “I’m sorry. I have to go, Naruto. There’s a meeting that I must attend. There’s been so much tension between the village and the Uchiha of late... I hope I can explain it to you soon. But I will come back to you as soon as I can. I promise.”

Naruto nods, his shoulders drooping. Tobirama’s expression falls, but even so, he stands, and quickly takes his leave. The room suffers for it, but not so badly that Naruto’s nausea feels like Kurama’s. The heartache is a different story.

 _Jiji says stuff like that, too,_ Naruto tells him quietly. _But it’s fine, ‘cause you’re still here. You won’t leave, right, Kurama?_

_"Of course not, shrimp. I'm here until you die."_

Naruto pushes the coloring book away. He makes himself comfortable with the blanket and pillow, clutching the stuffed frog tight to his chest.

_Will you tell me about Tobirama? Why did you say he was an honorary Uzumaki?_

_"Ah, that."_ Kurama pauses for a moment, considering how he _should_ tell Naruto. He settles on saying, " _Firstly, an honorary Uzumaki is a person unofficially adopted into the clan, because they loved and admired them enough to consider them family. Secondly, that is no mere mortal title. That Tobirama had it was a sign he was out of his Sage-damned mind and to be treated with all the caution due a full-blooded Uzumaki_."

_Really? But he didn’t act crazy._

_"He was mad all right_ — _a mad scientist and sealmaster._ Some _of his jutsu inventions were sensible. He created the shadow clone jutsu, which allows you to make a double of yourself that has chakra, and is much more useful in battle than a normal clone, which is so weak it’s practically genjutsu. He even developed a teleportation seal_ — _the same one your father recreated, and got him the name ‘Yellow Flash’."_

_What’s teleportation? And what’s the other stuff? The not-sensible inventions?_

_"Teleportation means he moved from one place to another without actually traveling that distance_ — _like if you were in your apartment one second, but popped up at Ichiraku’s the next, without actually walking there."_

_That’s so cool! I want to learn it, too!_

_"He might well teach you,"_ Kurama says dryly. " _But not the other jutsu. Probably the worst one was a way to bring the dead back to life_ — _not perfectly, but enough to call their souls back from the Pure Lands and temporarily bind them to a sacrifice."_

Naruto shudders, his horror whispering against Kurama’s consciousness like icy fingers.

_That’s scary! Why’d he think up something that scary, Kurama?_

_"He wasn’t a man who lusted after power, but he most certainly was the kind to use it to protect what he loved."_

After a long moment, Naruto says, _I don’t get understand. Why make a jutsu to protect people when they’re dead and at peace?_

Kurama — pauses.

 _"The dead could be brought back to life, so they could protect the living,"_ he says slowly. " _The spiritually sensitive might also think it's a way to let ghosts finish their own business._ _But... Such a thing might come from grief. Losing the people you love can drive you mad in many ways. You can be consumed by regret and all manner of feelings, like anger and sadness. You might even be mad with enough desperation to see the people you love back by your side, no matter the consequences."_

 _But they’re at peace. If they come back_ — _won’t they be upset? ‘Cause dead people who don’t go to the Pure Lands aren’t happy._

_"There’s a difference between being at peace and being happy. Peace for ghosts means acceptance of what’s happened. They don’t have to be happy. But the negative feelings they might have no longer trap them in this world."_

_I still don’t get it!_

_"You may not for a while. It’s the sort of thing you learn by living, and even then, some people don’t know they’ve learned it."_

Under his blanket, Naruto crosses his arms. _It’s still scary weird,_ he mutters.

 _"It is,"_ Kurama agrees. " _But we’ve gone a ways off track. Reviving the dead or not, your kinsmen thought a great deal of Tobirama. They even let him give his name to Uzushio."_

Naruto quickly moves to hug the stuffed frog. _No way! But he’s here, Kurama! How come Uzushio makes Mama stay there and lets Tobirama stay here?_

 _"He only gave his name, not his blood_ — _and believe me, Uzushio wants him. Did you smell the forest and brine on him? There’s a certain feeling about those smells, something that isn’t quite Tobirama, because those are the claims of competing gods._

 _"The land can be its own god, as much as the sea_ — _as Uzushio_ — _can be. The land of Fire_ — _particularly its forests, and those around Konoha_ — _loved Hashirama for his wood release. He was a conduit for the forest’s growth, and over time, the forest took on pieces of him through his chakra. Not enough to change much_ — _Hashirama was to the forest as a mayfly is to a man. But just enough so that they loved Tobirama, because he was Hashirama’s last and dearest brother._

 _"Tobirama died somewhere in this country. Where, I know not_ — _Mito wept bitterly when his body couldn’t be found. But he passed in these forests, and when he couldn’t make peace with his regrets, the forests held him back from Uzushio with all of Hashirama’s love, and having neither blood nor bone in its possession, Uzushio could not take him._

_"But still, Uzushio tries, and that is why you can smell both land and sea on Tobirama. Should his bones ever leave Fire Country, or his ghost go to the sea, Uzushio’s claim will succeed, and he’ll be trapped there as thoroughly as any full-blooded Uzumaki."_

There are lighter stories after that, so blood rites won’t haunt Naruto’s dreams. Stories about the chaos Tobirama and Mito could create when they studied seals together, about his exasperation and delight with Kushina’s many tricks. Stories about a stern man who, for all that Hashirama created the village and was its heart, made it _work_.

They spend the rest of their time in the tower like this, interrupted only by meals brought by the ANBU, and a single guard change that sees the wolf-dog boy and tiger-masked ANBU replaced by the wood-ANBU and a cat-masked ANBU.

It isn’t a perfect respite. Danger waits for them, and if Tobirama’s caginess is any measure, Danzo’s corruption has roots throughout the village. Naruto has so far to go, having only just reached a passable standard for his breathing exercises, and there is precious little Kurama can do to protect himself and his host _now._

But Kurama is old enough to have learned patience. This too can wait, if only for today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tobirama, I'm sorry in advance, but not sorry enough ;^;
> 
> drop a comment here or at my tumblr with your thoughts, and see you on March 5!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in retrospect, caught between upcoming deadlines for a request, an intensive art project, and job hunting, I should have given myself another week or two for this chapter. but I promised an update, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. but now I have a job and I!! am so!! excited!!!
> 
> anyway. I do have a vague outline, and I realized it's p rude to not tag appropriately in case you want to clear out before you get invested, so I've tried to add more in advance. if you're still here, happy reading!

Did Kurama say he understood the monkey-man’s decision to hide Naruto in a civilian red-light district, where the ill-intentioned would be less likely to seek him out? Yes? Because Kurama doesn’t. If there’s any chance the monkey-man’s ghost is still around when Kurama gets out of Naruto, Kurama might eat him.

Even the ANBU holding Naruto — tiger mask again — sucks in a sharp breath as he lands gingerly on the roof. He hitches Naruto up higher, murmurs for him to press close, and climbs carefully through the window.

Most of the windowpane is on the floor, as are the rocks that presumably shattered it. The rocks have messages tied on with twine, and even with them crumpled, Kurama can make out variations of _die, monster!_ in characters Naruto knows well from the Bingo Book. There must be paint somewhere, maybe outside the apartment — the sharp smell tickles Naruto’s nose and Kurama’s, but there’s nothing to suggest anyone has been in the apartment except for Naruto and the ANBU.

Naruto is less willing to believe. He wriggles free, and despite the ANBU’s attempts to keep him away from the glass, he makes a dash for the bed and tosses the pillow aside. The frog purse is still there, relatively fat from the monkey-man’s last visit and their miserly spending.

“ _It’s all there, kid,”_ Kurama murmurs as Naruto spreads the contents on his bed, counting and recounting the bills with shaking fingers. He’s gotten better at it, mouthing the numbers and sums as he goes, but it’s a cold comfort. “ _The outside of the apartment might be damaged, but no one’s been inside. Nothing’s been taken. Breathe with me.”_

Naruto draws his legs up and hugs them tight, watching over his knees as two more ANBU — the wood child and the little Uchiha — flow into the room. Tiger mask makes sharp, choppy hand signals in tandem with the anger coiling tight inside him. The few signals Kurama can understand are Kushina’s loan-signals and bastardizations to communicate, in precise detail, how desperately she wanted to wring someone’s neck for making a gods-damned _mess_ for her to clean up.

Tiger mask might have been part of Namikaze’s guard. Or maybe Kushina’s adjustments have spread throughout the ANBU, because little Uchiha makes several standard signs back with deliberate, even motions. Tiger mask makes several unmistakable gestures that certainly aren’t ANBU standard. The wood child only looks between them and sighs, tilting his head back as though looking heavenward, and claps his hands together.

With a flare of chakra, wood shutters race across the broken window, effectively blocking access to the outside. Naruto brightens immediately.

“Oh, _wow_ ! How come you can make stuff grow? Do trees like you? Can you make furniture and houses? Can you make _anything?_ ”

The wood child goes very still in the way of all beings unprepared to deal with small children and their endless questions.

Tiger mask pats him on the shoulder without a measure of sympathy. The little Uchiha shakes his head and mimes zipping his lips shut at Naruto, and with one last look at the bedroom and his comrades, leaves.

Wood Child and tiger mask share a look. Before tiger mask can start signing, Wood Child makes a series of signs. Tiger mask’s shoulders slump, but when Wood leaves, he follows without fuss, giving the child a single lazy wave as he goes.

 _“Miserable wretches,”_ Kurama mutters. “ _I’ll bet they surveyed the place before they brought you, but don’t have the backbone to clean without a direct order.”_

 _They never help anyway,_ Naruto says, so plainly and without malice that Kurama is angry for him. But anger will not clean the glass off the floor, or scrub the paint that’s surely plastered outside the apartment — so Kurama only tells Naruto, “ _No matter what anyone says, you are not a monster, and you should not die before your time comes.”_

Naruto makes a soft sound that isn’t refusal, but isn’t quite agreement, either.

_What if I am a monster, Kurama? Can’t I be a nice monster, like you? Can’t I be big and strong, so no one can be mean to me and you and everyone ever?_

A nice monster. Unease stirs in Kurama’s gut.

“ _I’m not nice, Naruto. I helped your parents to early graves.”_

 _Maybe not nice,_ Naruto amends. _But you’re_ good, _Kurama! You don’t like Mama and Daddy, but you always tell me nice stories about them, and you tell me to eat better and teach me stuff, and you’re not mean even though you’re trapped inside me, so_ — _so it’s okay. I like you anyway._

There’s precious little Kurama can say to that. None of it is quite enough for the traitorous warmth curling in his chest, anyway.

* * *

On a sunny afternoon a few days after Naruto’s stay in the scary tower, Kurama tells him he’s ready to sense chakra.

“ _Well, not just chakra,”_ Kurama says when Naruto starts cheering. “ _Since sensing impurities in souls and negative emotions is within my purview, you can do it, too.”_

_Impurities? Oh! Like that bad geezer in the tower!_

_“Exactly like that geezer, except you’ll learn to read impurities long before they get that bad.”_

_How do I do that?_

_“We start with chakra. Since I gave you bits of my own chakra in Hokage Tower, I want you to practice sensing mine. I’m going to give you little pulses, and I want you to tell me what you feel. Ready?”_

_I’m always ready, you know!_

At first, he feels nothing, and with it the sudden, creeping frustration that he’s going to be so _bad_ at this. Then there’s — there’s _something_ radiating from his belly. It trickles out like it has to fight to leave, but it’s _there,_ prickly like when he sits on his legs for too long and stands up too quickly. But the prickly feeling is warm, too, and it makes Naruto feel like nothing can hurt him — just like in the tower.

_That’s you! Warm and prickly!_

Kurama is quiet for a moment longer. Then he huffs a low laugh.

“ _Of course you’d call me prickly. But you’re absolutely right. That’s my chakra. Where did you feel it coming from?”_

_My belly!_

_“Good. Did it feel like a lot, or a little?”_

_A little! It felt like you had to push it through really hard._

_“Not all_ that _hard, but it does take effort to wear in a new seal.”_

The flow of chakra stops, although the little bit Kurama gave him takes longer to fade.

No. That isn’t right. Kurama’s chakra doesn’t _fade_ , exactly. It goes someplace. Not back into the seal, but it adds to — adds to _Naruto_ , somehow.

 _You stopped giving me chakra,_ Naruto says. _It’s_ — _it’s not really gone. It’s still there, somehow, but it doesn’t feel like you anymore._

Kurama hums. Even though he’s not in the cage, Naruto can picture Kurama’s tails swishing with interest. “ _You’re catching on fast. For the most part, if you don’t use the chakra I give you, it combines with yours. But that sort of thing is delicate right now. If I give you too much, it’ll burn your insides like acid even as it fixes them.”_

_What’s acid?_

_“A kind of liquid that tastes sour when it’s weak, and eats through other things when it’s strong. The vinegar used to pickle foods is a weak acid.”_

Naruto shudders. _Will your chakra always do that? I can’t be a cool shinobi if your chakra doesn’t like me!_

_“Likes and dislikes have nothing to do with it. My chakra’s just like that, shrimp. But if I give you little bits over time, you’ll get used to it, so more won’t hurt you.”_

Naruto claps his hands together, just once, because he’s too happy to just sit still.

 _“For now, let’s get back to sensing. I’m going to give you a little bit more chakra_ — _I want you to track it to yours.”_

The pulse comes, and only that pulse. Naruto tries hard to feel where it goes, which is _easy_ now that he knows what’s there isn’t just Kurama’s chakra, but his, cool like a breeze or a puddle on a hot day, but somehow heavy, like something he can reach inside himself and hold.

“ _Mm,”_ Kurama says. “ _You’ve got wind and tide in your blood.”_

_What’s that mean?_

“ _It means your chakra favors the forms of wind and water best. When you go on to learn elemental jutsu, wind and water techniques will come easiest. Can’t say I’m surprised_ — _Kushina was inclined to water and earth, and your father to wind. Besides, you’re Uzumaki. You lot don’t forget the sea so easily.”_

Knowing he has chakra like Mama and Daddy, like his _clan,_ makes Naruto feel warm inside. It helps as the lessons go on for _days_ , because sensing other things isn’t nearly as easy as sensing his own chakra.

Naruto starts with the kodama, because they’re the closest things to him in the park, and now that Naruto knows they won’t hurt him, they’re sort of funny. Sometimes one will fall off a branch and land on its back, and then other kodama will stand around it and click their heads, almost like they’re scolding. It takes a while before Naruto can tell they’re there when his eyes are closed — it gives him a headache to reach out with hands he can’t see, because the kodama feel like water running through his fingers, impossible to hold onto for long.

The trees follow, and Naruto thinks the kodama must have come first because they’re so little and so few. There are _so many_ trees that once Naruto senses them, he can’t stop — they’re _present_ in the way the kodama aren’t, the _green-bright-sap_ so heavy on his tongue and in his nose, Kurama has to help him back into his body with pinpricks of burning chakra.

Losing himself is frightening the first time. But after, all Naruto can do is marvel at how _alive_ the park is, even when no one’s around. No one but the ANBU, anyway, and when the trees become less overwhelming than a normal part of his life once more, the ANBU are the first people he learns to sense and read.

He understands now why Kurama gives them names like _wood child_ and _wolf-dog boy_ . The ANBU that gave him wood shutters until he got a window feels like the trees, if only a lot smaller. The ANBU with wild silver hair, the one Tobirama scolded, _does_ smell like a dog, but with an edge of something wilder, something like the fox Naruto met at the shop, but not quite the same. The ANBU with the tiger mask has chakra that smells like metal and feels as steady as the oak Naruto is huddled against. Another feels strangely like the kodama, because even though they’re definitely _here_ , their chakra is hard to focus on — but instead of feeling slippery, their chakra is like the sweet incense that comes from shops Naruto likes to watch through windows, but never dares to go in.

“ _That one’s an Uchiha,”_ Kurama mutters darkly. “ _Can you feel the bite in their chakra? Like rust on your tongue? That’s the sharingan. It’ll taste more strongly of blood when they’re traumatized enough for the Mangekyo, the next level of sharingan. You stay away from that one, and the rest of the Uchiha. Madness catches in that lot.”_

_But the dog-man has that! Is he an Uchiha?_

_“No. Someone gave him that eye. You can sense a little sweetness about him_ — _that’s because the eye is decaying, just a little, in his skull. But the eye likes it there, or it would start a soul-rot like you wouldn’t believe.”_ Kurama pauses then. “ _Actually, you would. That Danzo has a sharingan, and I’ll skin my own pelt if it doesn’t cry bloody pus.”_

Naruto shudders. Then he takes a harder look at the bushes where dog-man is hiding.

_But he doesn’t feel so good. If it’s not the sharingan, why’s he feel so bad?_

_“He hates himself,”_ Kurama says simply. “ _Even having negative feelings about yourself can taint your soul when you’re as angry and grief-sick as he is.”_

_Grief-sick? Is grief something you can catch? Like madness?_

_“No. Hm, I ought to have been clearer earlier_ — _‘catching madness’ is a figure of speech. I used it to mean that Uchiha tend to go mad often, and sometimes the way one person thought was quickly adopted by another. It isn’t something you catch like a cold._

 _“But you can be sick without having a cold or some such infection. That’s what happens when people lose loved ones. The way they feel about that loss_ — _all that anger and sadness, all the confusion and regret_ — _can be so overwhelming, it makes them sick. Sometimes people learn to carry those feelings without being overwhelmed. In others, the feelings persist as a sickness, and it marks them.”_

“Oh,” Naruto says softly, unable to help the little sound. Then, careful to talk just to Kurama, he asks, _Am I sick?_

 _“No. Your soul is healthy. You’ll likely be marked if you become a shinobi_ — _but marks aren’t always catastrophically bad. They can be small, as from anger and sadness, and they can come and go. Some stay and fester, and can be curable. Others thrive and become rot, like they did on Danzo, and have no cure but death._

 _“Just about every shinobi you’ll meet has some taint in their heart,”_ Kurama warns him. “ _It's unavoidable for the business they're in._ _Not all of it means they’re malicious people. But be wary of the anger_ — _you won’t always know why people are angry, but until you can defend yourself, it’s safer to run than wait to see why.”_

That, as it turns out, is very good advice when Naruto starts exploring the village beyond his neighborhood and the well-worn path to Ichiraku.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so like. I have hiring logistics to navigate and apartment-hunting is now a Problem, so the next chapter will be three weeks away to make up for this super short one. let me know what you like or chat me up, and see you around the 25th!

**Author's Note:**

> drop a comment and let me know what you think! until next time, folks!


End file.
